


The Wilderness

by josephides



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28502568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides
Summary: The Hunter’s Moon in October had the strongest pull of the year, which meant he spent much of the day in meditation if the full moon fell late in the night. The only person he noticed with any degree of detail was his mate, whose spirit was tied to him more closely, the musical bond a louder accompaniment to his day than he normally allowed. His mate who became simply Mate, a being who was nothing but peppery scent and mint to him, a visage of blue and gold.
Relationships: Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick
Comments: 16
Kudos: 111





	The Wilderness

There were some phone calls that were so frustrating they made Bran want to commit physical harm. It was the only time he was ever grateful for the distance telecommunications gave him. If he had been face to face, he would be several Alphas short by now.

After hanging up on one such call, very carefully placing the receiver down and not – say – slamming it into the cradle and smashing the device to pieces like he wanted to, he smoothly slid himself from behind his desk, and went to locate his mate. She was, as she often was early evening, watching something mindless on the television.

He stood directly in front of her, deliberately interrupting her field of vision. She slow blinked up at him, the corners of her mouth creating indents in her cheeks as she frowned. “Hello,” Leah said, pausing the show with the little remote that they frequently mislaid and giving him the attention his wolf, and Bran, desired.

She was curled up in one of the big armchairs, long legs to one side and cuddling one of the many decorative cushions that the pack regularly destroyed. There was a half-empty wine glass on the side table and the crumbling remains of what looked like some cheese and crackers.

Bran frowned down at her, trying to convey his need without verbalizing it. “I… just finished a call with Dorman.”

The message was received. “I see.” Placidly, she unfolded herself, giving Bran enough room to wedge himself in next to her. They wriggled until the desired comfort was achieved and then Leah pressed the play button on the remote control and resumed her show.

For Bran, the effect of her closeness was instantaneous and here, in their home, it wasn’t necessary for him to pretend otherwise. He relaxed, the blistering bubbles of his wolf’s anger finally receding.

Exhaling, he dropped his head back on the couch cushion and stared up at the beams across their vaulted ceiling. At the very top there was, as there had been for nearly two decades, a dangling plastic bat that Mercy had put up for Halloween one year. Goodness knew how she had got up there; they didn’t have a ladder tall enough, nor did they want to risk jumping from beam to beam to retrieve it. In the end, there it had stayed, to Leah’s abject irritation. Bran was almost fond of it; each time he saw it he wondered at Mercy’s ingenuity.

Leah’s show ended and she switched over to a local news channel for the weather. This Bran paid slightly more attention to, reaching around her shoulders to grab her glass of wine. He’d never really developed a taste for wine but recently Leah had adopted a wine tasting ‘hobby’, joining a subscription service that would send her different wines to try each month. He had to admit, some of them were growing on him.

This one was nice, for instance. Didn’t leave an aftertaste and was fruity, without being sweet. He was beginning to suspect part of the problem was that most of the wines he’d ever drunk were ‘fancy’ wines, the kind that lay aging in a dark cellar until the Marrok was visiting and then were brought out in celebration, something with which to impress, and they all tasted musty and heavy to him. Rather like they’d been stored for a long time in a cellar, in fact. 

He sucked on his tongue thoughtfully as the weather person elaborated on the potential for the first proper snow of the season the next weekend. He didn’t need to look to know that Leah had wrinkled her nose doubtfully. “Too early,” she murmured.

He agreed. Whilst the human impact on the climate was definitively real, weather followed patterns every year, give or take a few weeks, and they’d had none of the indicators that they might be getting heavy snow soon.

Leah took back her wine glass, their fingers brushing, and sipped.

Bran supposed he ought to get on with dinner. It was his turn. He’d even remembered to get out the chicken to thaw that morning. “I’m doing chicken schnitzel,” he announced.

“Oooh,” she said, giving him a small, distracted smile, “my favorite.”

This he knew. “Mashed potatoes or those little ones?”

Leah’s expression told him this was a stupid question. “Mashed.” She put her hand on his thigh, as is to hold him back from moving when he hadn’t made a move yet. “Oh, and can you use up the beans in the crisper, please.”

“Done.” He eased himself out of the chair. “Is there more of that wine?”

Increasingly, Bran found these evenings, the ones where it was just the two of them, as enjoyable as the ones where they were surrounded by their people. He put some music on in the kitchen and drank some wine and tried to be considerate with what Leah called his ‘flamboyant untidiness’, as the person who cooked didn’t wash up. Still, she came in as he was frying the chicken and wordlessly began to clean up after him. Her irritation about this wasn’t consistent; tonight she had a small, repressed smile on her face as she tipped the remains of the seasoned flour and egg away and started to fill the dishwasher.

Then, she got out a second bottle of wine, topped up his glass and poured herself another, before hopping up on the kitchen island behind him. This was the sort of casual thing Leah only did when they were alone together. If anyone from the pack had been here, she would never have used their kitchen counters in case it encouraged them to do so too.

“You’re wearing perfume today,” Bran said, because he had noted it that morning.

“Came free with a magazine. I quite like it.” She held out her wrist and, though it was unnecessary, he dutifully sniffed. She smelled like a mixture of the two of them, an inevitable side affect of living and being intimate with someone, and over that an artificial scent that reminded him of the holidays.

“Christmassy,” Bran said. He liked it.

She was smiling at him - one of her wide, open smiles, breathtaking in its honesty. He was the only person who mattered to her. “You know you only think that because I just wear perfume at Christmas, don’t you?”

Bran looked at her as he drained the beans into the colander in the sink and then the potatoes. “I had never put that together, no. That’s entertaining.” True, Leah only wore perfume at Christmas. The rest of the year, she didn’t like announcing herself, she said. He knew, when she had been human, she had been sickly and such vanities as perfume had been considered unnecessary. Had he therefore become so used to this that he associated her wearing scent with holidays? 

“Dining table or here?” she asked, changing the subject.

Bran didn’t need to glance at the breakfast bar. Outside of breakfast, he never enjoyed eating there. As far as he was concerned, it encouraged a fast food mentality. Proper meals should be enjoyed slowly. “Dining table.”

She hopped down and started to gather cutlery, pulled the placemats from the drawer. She made a second trip with condiments whilst he was mashing the potatoes with butter and a dash of cream and a good pinch of salt and pepper. When he was pleased with the consistency, he plated up two plates with their meal, leaving the leftovers to keep warm in the oven.

“This looks lovely, thank you,” Leah said, as polite as she ever was with each meal he put down in front of her. The sharing of domestic chores was, for them, a relatively recent construct and she still treated it as a rare treat.

Nonetheless, he was pleased. He liked cooking. He didn’t have the flair that Leah actually had – she had a creative streak – but he could follow a recipe. “You’re welcome.”

Dinner was companionable, as it usually was these days. He occasionally wondered – in so much as he allowed himself to consider their relationship – if they had entered into a new phase of adjustment. Once Leah had decided her feelings for him were romantic in nature, she had manifested a degree of bitterness that these feelings were not, and could never be, returned. He had managed this as best as he could but it had led to decades of strife.

In the last few years, possibly since Anna had joined the pack, possibly since Mercedes had left it, this had settled down. Perhaps she had come to terms with it. Perhaps he was kinder to her. He certainly hadn’t realized how high he held her in his own esteem until the moment he had questioned her loyalty. Thinking she might have betrayed him had nearly broken him.

“I was thinking of taking Kara to Yellowstone for a few days,” Leah said, unaware of the direction of his thoughts.

Bran nodded. “Nice idea. Do you want company?”

“Thank you, but no.”

Again, Bran mused, as he scooped up mashed potato, if this had been ten years ago she would have jumped at the chance. Perhaps Kara had made a difference, as well. Leah’s affection for Kara was a pure, simple thing. Leah did not love easily. 

“I might tackle the garage, then,” he said thoughtfully. It felt like a Fall thing to do. Put away the last of their outdoor furniture. Have things organized for Winter. It had been a chore they had both discussed several times and both put off.

Leah winced sympathetically. “Good luck.”

*

Bran did spend the weekend doing the garage – which was a combination of heavy lifting and organizing. It was the type of mindless task that he didn’t often get to do and yet was something he particularly enjoyed once he was involved. In the back of his mind, he had been chewing over some pack moves he wanted to make, or encourage to be made, and by Sunday morning he had worked out several solutions. He was satisfied.

Charles stopped by for breakfast, which he often did when Leah was away. They cooked together and Charles elaborated on an amusing incident between Asil and one of their newly Changed – a rather blunt female who had apparently taken against the Moor. To everyone’s surprise, Asil had seen this as some form of challenge to win her over rather than something to be ignored. 

“I don’t think it’s romantic,” Charles surmised.

Bran agreed. Though Asil strove to pretend otherwise, Sage’s betrayal had cut him to the quick. He wasn’t going to tangle with a werewolf female any time soon. Still. “Perhaps I should remind him that the newly Changed are off limits.”

His son grunted. “Only if you want to annoy him.”

“I do enjoy that,” Bran admitted.

Charles poured more maple syrup over his pancakes. “If you want to annoy him more, you should ask Leah to do it. And then she could enjoy it too.” An unholy smirk crossed Charles’s face, as if giving Leah this pleasure was something he would also enjoy.

Bran supposed his wife and his son both had reason to equally enjoy ‘annoying’ the Moor. “Perhaps I will.” Then again, perhaps not. Given their history, Leah instructing Asil on who he could not have romantic interest in was perhaps a little on the nose. Charles wasn’t in a position to know that however.

“She took Kara to run with the Yellowstone wolves?”

“She did. I imagine Kara will come back half-wild.” Leah certainly always did. 

“Anna loved it.”

Ah, yes. Despite Leah’s mixed feelings about Anna – and he knew his mate well enough to understand that they truly were mixed – she had still carried out the tradition. It was something Leah only did with the females. He was never certain why and, truthfully, he had always thought it a harmless whim. It wasn’t purely about her own enjoyment – his mate had always loved running with wild wolves – but something else he had never got to the bottom of, nor had he tried. If he had thought on it at all, it was to wonder if it was something her Alpha’s mate had done with her when she was newly changed. 

“What was it she liked?” Bran asked, rousing himself to be curious.

“Observing the pack behaviors, mostly. The parallels and the not-parallels, if that makes sense. She said Leah was instructive.” Charles paused, a brief line drawing cross his forehead as if he had never thought of this before. “Actually, Anna was very circumspect about the whole trip. She deliberately distracted me.”

It didn’t take a genius to imagine how a newly mated couple could distract each other. “You think there’s more to it?”

His son gave him a very small smile. “I do now. Why only the females?”

Bran shrugged. “I just assumed it was a bonding activity.” The newly Changed, and the new members of the pack, did tend to fall into her daily remit more these days. The increasing workload of the Marrok had led to more of a division of their domestic pack labor. 

Contemplatively, Charles sipped his coffee. “I thought so, as well.”

They left this mystery unsolved for the time being and moved on to other topics. When Charles was leaving, his son suddenly laughed. “When do they come back? Tuesday?”

“I think so.” Leah had been vague on the details.

“I guess we won’t see you for a few days, then.” Charles shook his head, as if something was beyond his ken. “Dinner tomorrow night?”

Bran was momentarily perplexed. Then his son’s knowing look gave him clarity. “Ah, I see what you mean. Yes. Dinner tomorrow night.”

Leah did come back half-wild – in many respects. An enjoyable side benefit for himself.

*

His wolf wasn’t restless, because Leah didn’t make him restless, usually quite the opposite, but he was twitchy. Eager. Bran knew this was nothing more than simple anticipation and there was nothing he could do about it but wait for her to come home.

They had always found each other attractive, perhaps it would have been easier for Bran if they hadn’t, but the crackle of her own wolf being so close to the surface seemed to ignite that attraction. He was keenly aware of Leah from the moment she returned to his territory Tuesday morning.

“I’m back,” she said, unnecessarily swinging herself around the door of his office.

He found himself staring at her, transfixed. There was a noticeable shimmer of amber over her blue eyes. “So you are. Did you both have a good time?” he asked equably.

“It was fantastic,” she said, swaying restlessly in the doorway. Her voice was a little hoarse, as if she had been shouting. She was wearing distressed denim jeans and a white t-shirt. It was in no way a provocative outfit and yet Bran wanted to lift the T-shirt and bite at her stomach.

Indeed, if Bran had been a lesser man, he would have pulled her down onto his office floor and done just that. Amongst other things.

Instead, he fixedly made eye contact and then looked away, towards his laptop screen, as if she was no distraction.

Leah’s smile was wide, however. She knew. “Did you tackle the garage?”

Giving up, giving in, Bran stood from behind his desk. “I did. Would you like me to show you?”

They had sex in the garage. Apparently Bran was, indeed, that lesser man. Afterwards, he took her upstairs to his bedroom to demonstrate more finesse than he had done on the bare concrete of their garage floor. Or tried to, at least, before Leah took control, pushing him onto his back and riding him teasingly close to orgasm. At one point he near lost his mind and a truth slipped out, _I love it when you’re like this._

He was hopeful she was too far gone to have heard him though. He tried hard not to love anything about her.

*

The email came through at 3pm and Bran happened to be taking a break from some monotonous combing through of a contract Charles had drafted. The forty-page document was mostly sticky notes and pencil marks. His son would be annoyed.

Bran clicked on the email as it was from an address he didn’t recognize, with the subject line of ‘Sad tidings’ and read the contents with lowered eyebrows.

“Leah!” he called, unnecessarily.

His wife crossed the short distance to his office from her own, a reprimand on her face. “Did you think I had gone suddenly deaf?”

“You could have been outside,” he lied, baldly. She was in the process of making the first pass through the interviews for the October ceremony. He had heard the sounds of the video diaries playing from her computer speakers.

Leah ignored this obvious lie and came around to read his screen, leaning close. She smelled peppery, with a hint of mint. There was a small sliver of skin, visible between her jeans and her sweater. He stared at it. “Oh,” she said, standing up straight. The tantalizing skin disappeared and he was able to refocus to watch a variety of expressions cross her transparent face. He studied each one until she settled on simple sadness. “She was my Alpha’s mate.”

“Yes. I know.”

“He died nearly sixty years ago.”

Bran knew this too. They had gone to the funeral just outside Montreal. Leah had, to his absolute surprise, wept silently behind her sunglasses, mourning a man she had never spoken of to him, not even in passing. They had flown home immediately afterwards, at her request, avoiding the wake and, presumably, the woman who had now joined her mate. They had not discussed the funeral in any detail but he had not prompted her to.

“Was she at Guillaume’s funeral?” he asked, trying to recall a face to go with the name. Antoinette. It was distinctive.

Leah shook her head. “No, she was still incapacitated. I wrote my condolences to her. May I?” She gestured with her body and he rose, offering her his chair. She tapped a response to the email, asking for the details of the funeral. Pressing send, she looked up at him, her face open. “You don’t have to come to this one.”

He allowed his hand to rest on her shoulder, remembering her quiet tears. “If I can, I will.”

Leah looked down at her fingers, resting on the keyboard, and said nothing.

Initially, when the details of the funeral came back to him, it did look as if Bran would be able to attend. If he thought Leah would be pleased, he was mistaken – if anything she looked a little concerned. They were long past the time in their lives when Bran might have allowed that, so he instead he asked her. “Do you not want me to come?”

She shook her head. “No, I would be glad of your company, of course. It’s just, oh, you know how it is. When you meet people you used to know. You just talk about old times and I think you might find it…” Leah struggled, visibly, to think of a word. “Commonplace,” she decided, with an exhale.

Bran lifted his eyebrows and then tugged the T-shirt he was currently sleeping in out from under his pillow. “Commonplace?”

“You know what I mean.” Leah turned her palms out to the side. “We were a small pack. We lived simple lives. We didn’t fight fae or witches or vampires.”

“Are you somehow implying I’m a snob? That I would be bored?”

His mate of two centuries pulled a face and slid between the sheets. Unlike him, Leah slept in the nude. She claimed she grew too hot, otherwise, though she certainly had no problem with sharing his body heat. Bran regularly woke with her draped over him. “Kind of.”

“I’m offended.” And he was. Surprisingly so, given he often felt Leah knew him the best – in that she really knew the worst of him. ‘Snob’ he was not.

Leah blinked her big blue eyes at him, innocently. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“This is a hang-up of yours, rather than of mine,” he responded, annoyed. He climbed into bed with her and lay on his back, glaring at the ceiling.

“You have to admit—”

“No,” Bran said tersely, in a voice that brokered no argument. “I do not.”

They did not speak, or touch, for the rest of the night but in the morning, he woke to find she had grabbed hold of the hem of his T-shirt in her sleep, bunched in her fist like a child tethering to an adult. In repose, she looked soft and particularly beautiful, the most unkempt she ever was, her hair pulled from her braid, face relaxed.

He forced himself to stop looking and carefully disentangled her fingers so he could get on with his day.

*

The day before the funeral, he received a phone-call from Tobias, in Calgary. Tobias was not a man prone to exaggeration or temper but Bran answered when he was clearly in the middle of cussing out a member of his pack at full volume. He pulled the handset away from his ear.

“Dammit – Bran, my apologies,” said the man. “No, you fool— iron. IRON. That’s brass. May God preserve me from the idiots I have surrounded myself with. Marrok?”

“I’m still here,” he said, slowly rising. Iron could mean only one thing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Leah come to stand in his doorway, her eyebrows up. Clearly Tobias’s voice had travelled.

“I am besieged with fae. Tiny ones. No bigger than my hand. They are— fucking everywhere. I beg your pardon. They are destroying— Jesus Christ, Anthony, the FIRE POKER! THE FIRE POKER IS IRON.”

Despite himself, Bran’s mouth twitched. His wife leaned on the door jamb, crossing her arms and fully grinning. “Has anyone been harmed?”

“Ah, no, just the house falling down around me, Bran,” Tobias said drily, adopting his more measured tone. “But they’re spreading. And, obviously, I appreciate it’s a sensitive time with the little people—”

Bran coughed, reaching for a well thumbed book on his shelf. “I don’t think that is a term the fae prefer.”

“Well, it’s currently very apt. How do I get rid of the little fuckers?”

He decided he would let the swearing go, for this time alone. “Have you tried talking to them? Bargaining?”

“Talking. Shouting. Bribes. Oh, so many bribes I have made. I have tried everything. If they speak, it’s not a language I understand and, Bran, I haven’t slept in nearly a week. We have no crockery left. They have broken all the windows. They have shredded every curtain, every couch cushion. Everything. My wife moved out.”

Bran flicked through the book. “Hmm, sounds like—”

“Tobias breeds horses,” Leah whispered helpfully from the doorway. Her grin was unholy.

Horses. He paused, went back a couple of pages. “Pixies. Oh, my friend, that’s not good.” Pixies were not high up in the fae intellectual food chain. Even most fae avoided them. They were pests.

“Can I kill them?”

Bran winced. Whilst the fae considered them nothing less than vermin, he had no doubt it would be used against him if one of his packs ‘dealt’ with the problem the way werewolves knew best. And certainly now that Tobias had called him for his approval. “Best not.” He closed his eyes. This was less amusing. “You need to trap them. And for that you need a witch.”

Tobias’s silence said everything. Then, “No witches.”

“A white witch,” Bran grunted. “I’ll speak to Angus.”

“Bran—”

“And I will come,” he sighed, making eye contact with his wife, as he had no doubt this would impact their plans for the funeral of her late Alpha’s wife. Leah shrugged, looking unmoved. She pushed herself off the door frame and walked off without any verbal or other reprimands. She was well used to his priorities.

The following morning, Bran drove her to the airport himself. They had been intending to use the Jet but with his pest control mission taking priority they couldn’t find a suitable co-pilot for her at short notice. If anything, flying commercial seemed to be more annoying to her than his absence.

“Call me when you land,” Bran instructed. It wasn’t every day she travelled for a funeral of a loved one and he wasn’t so cold-hearted, even if she thought him so. Which she did.

So much so that this instruction seemed to stun her for a moment. She shook her head. “I’ll try to remember.”

Leah checked inside her handbag, a designer leather affair she only used when travelling, the cost of which had made his eyes bulge, and then snapped it closed. “Don’t bring a pair of pixies back. The infestation in 1903 still haunts me.” She darted forward and gave him a brief kiss on his cheek, then a winsome smile over her shoulder as she climbed out of the car. “Take photos, though. I want to see Tobias losing his sh—sugar over pixies.”

Bran watched his wife sashay off, her expensive little wheeled suitcase behind her, her ponytail swishing from side to side and her Canada Goose padded coat draped over her arm. With a sense of detachment, he counted the men who openly turned to watch her pass. He had been long used to the impact his wife had on the opposite sex, though he himself was oblivious to it now.

Well. Almost.

Restarting the engine, he pulled away from the curb, his mind focused on his next task.

*

Bran liked driving. He particularly liked driving when he was doing so with no sense of emergency. Instead it was just him, the road, occasionally the radio, and maybe a few phone calls to while away the time.

Sam picked up on his second attempt to call. “You’re driving,” he said, almost immediately. Then, “Oh. This is a social call.”

His eldest son’s tone reminded him this was rare. Bran smiled. “It is indeed. How are you?”

Sam snorted. “I’m fine, Da. How are you?”

Even over the phone, Bran could tell that Sam was indeed ‘fine’. It had not been so long ago that he hadn’t been. Something around Bran’s heart eased. “I am on my way to Calgary. Pixies.”

“Oh, I would not wish that on anyone. Do you remember—”

“1903. Not as vividly as the rest of you seem to.” Leah hadn’t been the only one to bring it up. Tag had visibly shuddered and wished him well and entreated him to make sure he was pixie-free before he returned.

“I suppose you wouldn’t. Weren’t you in Europe? With Charles?” Sam mused out loud. “Was it just Leah and I who suffered the torment?”

There really was only so much Bran was capable of remembering. Despite his people’s belief in his omnipotence, sometimes the minutiae escaped him. Or, in this instance, the significance. He did not like to remember that particular trip to Europe. “Ah. You may be right.” Bran and his son had gone to France to meet with Chastel again, to ‘discuss’ his increasingly public proclivities. Charles had… not been happy with the outcome.

“Yes, that was it. You returned at the end of the pixie slaughter.” Sam chuckled and then sighed, strangely, as if the memory was a good one when Bran distinctly recalled coming home to an irate mate and a darkly silent Sam. Both of them had been exhausted. “Calgary. Tobias?”

Bran signaled to overtake a station wagon that had seen better days. He gave the white-haired driver a passing look as he overtook it. “In a rare old state.”

“I take it you won’t be beheading them with iron swords?”

“Is that what you used?”

“After much trial and error, yes.” There was a creak of a chair as he son sat back, wherever he was. Bran assumed from the ring tone that he was in the country, though whether it was the house in Tri-Cities or one of Ariana’s homes elsewhere, he didn’t know. “There’s one in the hall, unless it’s been moved. I’m surprised Leah didn’t suggest you take it.”

Bran tried to picture it but all he could see in his mind’s eye were the variety of paintings from local artists his mate preferred. “In the hall?”

“Yes, outside Leah’s sewing room— I’m sorry, her office,” Sam said, dismissively. Bran pursed his lips; Sam was treading a fine line. “She had it cleaned and preserved for next time.”

Bran had not known that because, truth be told, outside of his office he paid very little attention to the decoration of his house. That was very much Leah’s domain, in that it was something she was interested in and therefore Bran could not be.

But, more importantly, he hadn’t known a weapon that had been used to ‘slaughter’ fae was now on display in his home. It would certainly have to be moved to somewhere less public. They weren’t in the habit of inviting fae into their home, though he was by no means foolish enough to think that Aspen Creek was a secret any longer, but the prospect of a friendly fae lingering in front of such a weapon gave him pause.

Sam, apparently, was still on a nostalgic journey through his past. “I tell you what, it’s not something I will forget,” he chuckled. “Leah’s bloodcurdling scream as she mowed down a dozen of them with a sword, wearing nothing but her bloomers and a corset. Do you know they bleed green? My fingers were stained for weeks.”

There had been one or two left by the time he returned from Europe. From what he recalled, Leah had dispatched them with a saucepan without batting an eye and then informed him he was in charge of ‘clean-up’. “I do. We had to repaint the kitchen,” he said. 

Sam laughed. “Ah. Yes. Those were the days.”

*

Bran liked Moira, in so much as he liked anyone who wasn’t a werewolf. More importantly, he respected her. They worked well together and Tom was a stalwart, silent companion to their combined endeavors to rid their corner of the world of Other injustice. When he briefed them on Tobias’s unhappy past with witches, they simply nodded and Tom put a hand on Moira’s arm to squeeze her reassuringly.

In some senses, to the ever-physical werewolves Moira was a confusing conundrum. That she was blind led a great number to underestimate her, a fact he had seen her use to her advantage more than once. Tobias was wiser than that, however, and when Bran introduced them, he could see the bigger, broader man was doing everything in his power not to quake with fear.

Bran preferred it when his people didn’t trust witches. Even white ones.

He viewed the ranch house that served as the main residence for the Calgary pack, as Tom quietly described it to Moira. “Looks like a haunted house,” he summarized, neatly. The windows were gone, as Tobias had mentioned. Bran could see boards peeling from the sides, evidence of small teeth chewing through the wood. 

Moira whistled. “Must be a big infestation.”

Tobias ran a hand over his bristly buzz-cut, a new feature which rather reminded Bran of a seal, the way the light caught one side and turned his hair pure blonde. “What I can’t understand is how it got here.”

“Any new horses?” Bran nodded to the barns in the distance. As well as a modest breeding program, Tobias also boarded horses for outside individuals. “They love horses. Most likely a mated pair caught a ride from somewhere else. And multiplied.”

Tobias grunted and the same hand that had rubbed his head, wiped down his face, drawing on his naturally tanned skin. “I thought fae had problems with fertility.”

“In the upper ranks. Not at this level.”

From the back of the house, they heard a loud noise – glass smashing. Tobias’s expression barely changed but at their enquiring looks, he shrugged. “They’ve been working on Nell’s greenhouse this morning. I daren’t tell her.”

Nell was his wife. Bran slapped Tobias on his enormous bicep. “No matter. We have a plan, my friend.”

The ‘plan’, Bran had concocted in the car in the last hour of his journey, before he picked up Moira and Tom from the airport. If he didn’t say so himself, it was a work of genius and had been met by several snorting laughs from Moira as he explained it to her.

“So, we’re what, the Pied Piper of Pixies?”

“Close enough. Can you do it?”

Moira thought about it. “I… can. It would help if we had additional sensorial effects. Smell. Sound.”

“Sound we can do,” Tom announced. He had been tapping away on his cell phone. “Plenty of recordings of horses on YouTube.”

When he ran through the plan with Tobias, Moira’s working keeping them in a private bubble in case the pixies could understand but not speak, the bigger man looked doubtful. “Really?” He glanced at the witch and then away again. “A giant… sparkly horse?”

“Trust me,” Bran said, imbuing his words with confidence. “It’ll work.”

“I mean – I guess. So,” he sighed, “the biggest challenge will be creating something to contain them.”

“I would suggest reinforcing the inside of one of your horse boxes with steel and then covering it with horse blankets and hay.”

That night, the Calgary pack got their first night of sleep within a boundary created by Moira, in pop-up tents that had apparently been brought off Amazon the day before. There was a bonfire, a cooler of beers and soft drinks and if Bran was absolutely honest, it was one of the nicer evening’s he’d spent with one of his packs in some years. At some point, Tobias’s wife arrived with several buckets of fried chicken and was greeted with cheers and a scrabble to dispense chicken and sides on paper plates.

“I heard about my greenhouse,” she told her husband darkly, kissing his cheek nonetheless and handing him one of the buckets of chicken.

Tobias winced. “Ah.”

“No matter. It was old. Now I can get a new one,” she said cheerfully, dropping down next to him.

This sent a ripple of chuckles through the collected pack, gathered around the fire, as her husband winced again, this time perhaps wondering if his insurance would cover ‘acts of pixie’.

“Good evening, Bran,” Nell said formally, bowing her head to him. “Welcome to our territory, if my husband forgot to do the niceties.”

He had. Bran grinned as Tobias rolled his eyes. “Helena Beauchamp, I am delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. And this is Moira and Tom, the Pied Pipers of Pixie.”

This got a smile from everyone. Moira saluted with a piece of chicken, leaning comfortably against her husband. “So I have heard. Welcome both. And how is your lovely wife, Bran?”

Manfully, Bran resisted the urge to express any derision for the use of the adjective she had used to describe his wife. “She’s well— actually, she’s at a funeral.” Or rather, had been. He glanced at his watch unnecessarily. It was nearing midnight. She had also failed to remember to call him.

Nell’s brown eyes warmed with sorrow. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was it someone close?” She nibbled delicately at her chicken.

“To her.” Apparently. “The mate of her once-Alpha.”

To his surprise, given he had always thought Leah and Nell had little in the way of contact, Nell tilted her head to the side. “Antoinette? Antoinette died?”

“The very same. You knew her?” 

“Only through family connections.” Nell glanced at Tobias, putting her clean hand on his thigh to draw his attention from his quiet conversation with their Second. “Sarah came from that pack, didn’t she?” Without waiting for Tobias to respond, she came back to Bran eagerly. “Did you meet?”

He shook his head. “I never had the pleasure.”

“She wasn’t at the wedding?”

Presumably she meant his and Leah’s. Bran shook his head. He sipped his beer. “No.”

A white-toothed grin accompanied a rich chuckle. “Oh-ho, then I’m afraid she didn’t approve. Poor Leah. That woman’s disapproval was legendary.” 

“Nell,” Tobias said gruffly, squirming uncomfortably. “I’m sure that’s not the case.”

“No, you remember the sternly worded letter we received when Sarah got engaged to Mark?” Her arched eyebrows rose. “We had to send Mark to meet her for her approval. He said it was a near thing.” Around them, there was another round of laughter from those who knew their son.

Mark was their only child, born before Nell had been Changed, which had to have been over a century before. They were one of a handful of couples Bran had ever met who had successfully made the transition from wolf-and-human mates to a fully mated pair.

Bran didn’t think he had ever met Sarah. He thought they were both in Texas, the Canyon Lake pack. Mark was the Second and, like his father, a good, solid man. One day he would make an equally good, solid Alpha. Perhaps even of this pack. 

“To this day, Sarah says that if Antoinette had ordered her not to, she wouldn’t have done it. Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t.” Shaking her head, Nell pulled her cell phone from her front pocket. “I presume she’s at the funeral, too. I’ll send her a message.”

Uncomfortably aware that this was a piece of his mate’s life he was missing and the lack was obvious, Bran tried to sift through any conversations – one-sided or otherwise – he’d had with Leah on the topic of her first pack. He had met her in Massachusetts, in what equated to a high society gathering for the time. She’d been ‘visiting family’, as she’d put it, her pack being much further north in what would become Quebec. He hadn’t put a great deal of effort into seeking out further information than that because by then his wolf had already seen in her what he wanted. They had been mated, and married, within three months and his pack had become hers.

If anything, Bran mused, taking another long pull of his beer, he suspected he’d entirely forgotten the Boston pack hadn’t been her people until the funeral he’d attended in Montreal. They had certainly served as such and she had been comfortably familiar with them. The Alpha had given her away and his mate had gifted Leah a pearl necklace she still wore to this day. He wondered if they had really been family.

He wondered as well, not without some amusement, if Antoinette had disapproved of Bran enough to forbid their marriage or if his wife, who liked to think she bowed to no one, had not even sought permission.

The latter, Bran suspected.

*

The primary plan went off without a hitch, which Bran thought surprised everyone. Clearly his strategic powers needed to be flexed more in these territories that usually caused him no bother. Nell took many photos, promising to share them by email, and then Bran and Tom took turns driving the circuitous route to Seattle so they could have have the absolute pleasure of dropping off the horse box outside the new Regional branch of Cantrip for them to deal with.

Or not.

“Diabolical,” Tom whispered from the back of his truck as his wife worked the spell that would keep the origins of the horse box a mystery to the cameras. It helped that they crossed borders and states.

“I thought the note was a nice touch,” Bran added.

“Thank you.” Tom had scored ‘Please return to sender’ on the inside of the horsebox, in the hope that Cantrip might hit upon the idea to take the pixies to the nearest fae reservation, thereby saving Bran that particular pleasure and possibly an interspecies incident.

As they were in Seattle, Bran gratefully accepted Angus’s invitation to stay over and run the warehouse maze with his pack that night. Since he hadn’t heard from Leah, still, Bran put in a call to share his plans and to let her know that someone would be dropping off his car at some point. After Sage’s betrayal, Leah had made it clear that a future where he didn’t share his plans with her was not a future she would tolerate. Apparently he had been erroneous in his belief that she didn’t care, perhaps wishful thinking on his part. _What kind of wife doesn’t want to know where her husband is?_ she had demanded of him. _Who do you take me for?_

However, the call to her cell phone went unanswered and when he tried the house phone, Charles answered. “No, she’s not back yet. Were you expecting her?” his son asked. From the sounds of it, he was in Bran’s office, which Bran encouraged when he was away.

“I suppose I thought—” They hadn’t discussed it. He had assumed like last time she would have returned immediately.

He regaled Charles with the events of the last day and had his often-serious son laughing out loud. “I look forward to the photos. Ah, a shame we can’t get them framed.”

That reminded him. “Is there a sword hanging on the wall outside of Leah’s office?”

Charles didn’t appear to need to move to confirm this. “Wulfila? Yes.”

Bran paused. The translation, from Gothic, was literally ‘little wolf’. “The sword is called Wulfila?”

“Yes. All good swords should have a name, Da, and by all accounts, it was a very good sword.”

“How have I entirely missed this?” he asked himself, and his son. “You were in Europe with me. Why do you know?”

“Hmm. I know because I was told. But I don’t think you and Leah were speaking at the time.”

More than possible. She had not been pleased he had gone to Europe without her and Leah had once been able to sulk for weeks. It had been one of the first traits of hers to ignore. She had broken herself of the habit, having finally learnt it did her no favors.

“You’ve really never noticed the sword hanging in the hallway?” Charles asked, quietly laughing at this curious lack of observation.

*

As he stood beneath it, hands on his hips, the sword was hard to miss. What with the feature lights and everything. On a slightly more positive note, it was directly above Leah’s office door, further down the hall from his office, and one of the feature lights wasn’t working so it was plausible that this was something he had simply just not seen.

Nevertheless, Bran shook his head and realized he would have to discuss Wulfila’s removal with his wife. Who was still not home. He had received one message from her, just after 4am that morning, saying that the funeral had been ‘mercifully brief’. Since this was a response to the first message he had sent her the day before yesterday, rather than his further updates and questions regarding her location, he logically assumed she was without phone signal and he would hear from her when she next connected. As far as he was concerned, he had fulfilled his side of the communication bargain.

The house was pleasantly quiet after a couple of days of intense activity and Charles had decided not to mess with his office layout like he usually did so Bran lit his fire, made himself a tea, and read until his stomach told him it was time to eat. With impeccable timing, Tag appeared just as Bran was pulling a roast chicken and potatoes from the oven. “Thought you could use the company,” his long-time friend and packmate said, placing a bottle of homemade cider on the kitchen island and going straight to the cupboards to take down another plate.

Since Bran never prepared a meal that would satisfy his appetite alone – leftovers were a staple of the Marrok’s house – he doled out chicken, potatoes, creamed spinach and peas and they passed a companionable meal talking of mild things, stories of their past and present. Afterwards, they rifled through the side of the freezer where Leah stored all the sweet things – ice cream and fruit pies and tarts and cookie dough.

“If we blitz it in the microwave, do you think it would be soft enough to bake?” Tag asked, holding up a bag of cookie dough.

“There’s a defrost setting, I think.”

They puzzled over this – two men whose intellects were not meagre – and stood watching the bag rotate in the microwave, periodically taking it out to check the consistency.

“I think that’ll do,” Bran decided. They sliced off neat-ish rounds onto a silicone baking sheet and then stood staring at the oven as the cookies baked, the room starting to smell like sugar and butter and peanuts. A good sign.

The cookies were a little overdone, in the end, but no worse for wear from their microwave experiment. They ate all twenty-four of them, one after the other, watching reruns of M*A*S*H on the big TV in the living area.

Much later, having worked his way through a sugar high and then a sugar low, Bran climbed into his wife’s bed to appease his wolf and fell asleep to the sound of the clock on her bedside table tick, tick, ticking time away.

*

Charles gave Bran an affectionate but speaking look. “Anna has been looking at the data from our Changes from the last few years.”

They were on their way back from seeing Wellesley, home from witch-hunting for a well-deserved vacation. The change in the man was remarkable and had it not been for the home he had made, Bran would have suggested he might consider moving into the town proper.

At Charles’s words, Bran met his daughter-in-law’s eyes in the rear view mirror. Unlike his mate, Anna was able to take teasing from her own husband and her eyes were crinkled with humor. Perhaps, Bran thought, because she knew it was done with love. Leah had no such reassurance. “I have. It’s interesting to know how things have evolved. Besides presumably that’s why you have spreadsheets, Charles. To analyze them.”

This could not be denied. Bran took the left hand turning that would take them up into Aspen Creek.

“You know what the most interesting thing was?”

“What, my love?” Charles asked, words Bran had never heard his son say tripping off his tongue with ease.

“That Leah is really good at picking the winners.”

Bran’s mouth twitched. ‘Winners’. He was beginning to see why Charles had taken the tone he had. “Is she, indeed.”

“Yes. In the end, the three of you are the final vote – after all the psych testing, all the forms, all the interviews. And statistically Leah’s picks – combined, obviously, with yours – all seem to be more consistently successful.”

Bran supposed this was a little interesting, purely in the sense of luck than skill, which he had no doubt it was. “I’ve never noted that.”

“She has been making the vote for less time, Anna,” Charles pointed out, still obviously humoring his wife. “It’s not that big a sample.”

This was true. It had been Sam who had been the third vote until a few decades ago, when Leah had begun protesting about not being included. Sam – she had pointed out – was not part of the leadership of their pack and yet Bran treated his voice as better than her own. She was technically the second most dominant werewolf in North America and had seen the decision on who was being Changed as the latest demonstration required to complete her authority. She had argued with Bran about it for weeks but when he finally put it to Sam, more to silence her than because Bran agreed with the principle, his son had been all too happy to give up his ‘death sentence’ of a vote. Bran suspected Leah had been disappointed with his son’s lack of resistance. No doubt it was part of the fun for her. 

There was no real science to what would make a Change successful. Just a feeling. A sense that the human themselves could fight – physically, emotionally – and short of putting them into a gladiator arena, that wasn’t something that could be tested in advance and everything could change on the night itself. Leah might well have good instincts for it. Bran did too.

He supposed he was faintly surprised that he wasn’t ‘statistically’ more likely to select survivors. He had the most experience.

Anna continued, now taking on slightly testier tone. “I know that. Using the same formula, I compared pre-Leah to post-Leah as well. Pre-Leah, Bran was statistically more successful, followed by Charles, then by Sam. Afterwards, it’s definitely Leah, then Bran, then you, Charles. Sorry,” she added.

Charles made a thoughtful noise, which accompanied Bran’s own ‘huh’.

Anna moved on. “When’s she coming back?”

“Late tonight.”

“In the time that I’ve been here, I don’t think Leah’s even left Aspen Creek for a night, let alone, what is it, a week?”

“She doesn’t often anymore. Da used to send her away, for work,” Charles added, not without emphasis on the term ‘work’. This was true. He had occasionally used Leah for exacting punishment, usually if that punishment was for a female. Otherwise he had used Fiona.

Knowing it was coming, Bran answered the question Anna was about to ask, “I started to travel more and it’s better to have one of us here, more consistently.”

Whilst Leah didn’t have friends in the pack, not in the same way as he, or Anna might, she was respected and the pack knew to come to her with their problems, rather than sit on it and wait for him to return. Certainly they would choose her over Charles, whom he usually left in charge _de facto_ if not _de jure_. Though he supposed all that had changed with Anna’s arrival.

Even knowing that, Bran was hesitant to deploy Leah again. Over the handful of decades she had carried out work for him, she had built a name for herself and that name was tied to his. She was proud of being his wife, it gave her that cache of authority that she enjoyed so much, and she was not hesitant of using that. As his enemies grew in number, and grew more persistent, Leah had become a target and he wanted to restrict the numbers who could put a name to a face. With technology developing at the speed it was, that had become an increasing problem. It didn’t need saying that Leah herself had become his biggest weakness – beyond his sons, even. A blow to her would be a blow to him. He couldn’t risk that. Not now. 

It was unfortunate. Leah liked to be useful to him and she had the ability to detach herself from the work required. Didn’t let it weigh her down like it had come to weigh Charles down. She was practical like that. Unlike his son, Leah had absolute faith in Bran’s decision making powers.

As Bran turned into their drive, he remembered something that would make his daughter-in-law smile. “Oh, Nell sent through the photos of the pixies.” 

He caught her beaming grin in the rear-view mirror. “I feel like this is something that the rest of the pack would like to see. Perhaps we could arrange a show and tell?”

*

If there were better ways to be woken, Bran didn’t know it, though she could have perhaps have been naked. He did enjoy her body so. “Why are you wearing so many clothes?” he demanded with a huffing laugh, fighting her jeans, confused that they didn’t seem to be a pair he was familiar with. Had she also fitted in some shopping?

Leah snorted into his mouth. “It’s thirty degrees out there.” She paused to toss her sweater over the side of the bed and then rolled onto her back so she could wriggle out of her jeans. Bran bent his head so he could mouth a nipple through her bra, sliding his hand into her panties.

“Lack of forethought, I think,” he chastised as her hips bucked into his seeking fingers.

Leah undid her bra, eagerly looking him up and down. “I notice you’re still in your pajamas, though.”

Demonstrating the speed to which he could remove these made her laugh and then she climbed on top of him, finally and gloriously nude. “Okay?” Leah checked, kissing his chin, nudging her nose against his cheek, teeth nipping. Sometimes, if they had been apart for a long time, his wolf did not take well to this display of dominance in the bedroom.

“No complaints here,” Bran assured her, running his hands down her soft skin, sighing in delight as the smell of pepper and mint rushed to his head and she began to kiss her way down his body.

Afterwards – and after again – he dozed, stroking her spine, listening as Leah’s breaths became soothingly deeper and more even, heading towards sleep and taking him with her. She jerked suddenly, her eyes snapping open. “I should have told you to take Wulfila.”

Helplessly, Bran grinned. “Ah, yes, Wulfila. The slayer of pixies. Unfortunately, mine was a mission of peace.”

In low tones, Bran told her the tale he had now regaled two or three times, really honing the story so that he knew when to pause for effect, to emphasize, to draw out the tension. After initially frowning heavily, her bloodthirsty nature calling for the death of all pixies, Leah howled with laughter – laughed so hard, in fact, that tears crept down her face and she had to get up to blow her nose.

“That is spectacular, Bran. It’s a scene that should be painted.”

Bran reached for his cell, which he didn’t usually keep by his bed but had done in case she called with any travel problems. This time of year, getting an unexpected dump of snow wasn’t out of the question. Propped up against the headboard, he showed her the photos Nell had taken, Leah emitting noises of laughter intermixed with frustrated aggression.

Leaning over him, Leah zoomed in on a picture of a group of pixies bouncing on what was left of Tobias’s car. “See, there, see that little red mark – that means this one has more brain cells than the others. Learnt that the hard way.”

The mark was on the back of the neck. He had noted it only in an abstract way. “I did not know that.”

His mate was animated, tucking her dark blonde hair behind her ears in a business-like way. “They basically have mini team leaders. We never worked out if they fed up to a greater authority, they seemed to work almost entirely in independent groups – with pixies defecting to other teams if one was more successful than the other. Look, this is the one, the one that should be the painting,” Leah decided, zooming out and showing him the shot of the stream of pixies marching to the horsebox, glowing with the mystical horse energy that had been entirely manufactured by a witch, a recording of a stallion, and thirty heavily scented horse blankets.

He liked the idea, actually. “Like a Constable, perhaps. Or a Cole.”

“Yes. Oil on canvas. Very serious, technically perfect, but… pixies.” Leah mock-frowned. Then her face lightened and she turned on her side, tucking her hands under her cheek. “Tell me again about the part where you left them in front of Cantrip’s offices.”

Bran, captured momentarily by the sheer enjoyment of the moment, of a story well told and well received, leaned forward to kiss her. He could have stopped there, could have allowed himself that instance of pure affection, for that was what it was, but knew that way lay risk. So he turned it into what they both knew and pushed her onto her back, let his wolf’s never-ceasing need for her dictate his actions. “I will. Later.”

*

Considering she had flown to Quebec for a funeral, on her return Leah was in a very good mood for some weeks. So good was her mood that it was commented upon to Bran – the members of their pack knowing much better than to imply to Leah’s face that she was anything less than effusively enthusiastic at all times.

Bran knew better than to imply he thought Leah’s mood was in any way changed and simply gave each speaker a blank look.

Eventually, because he had found himself becoming increasingly curious, he broke a cardinal rule of their marriage and asked her personal questions. “You haven’t mentioned what you did after the funeral. The pack’s based north of Saguenay, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He waited. And waited. Leah’s eyes remained fixed on the television. They were sitting on adjacent couches, Leah’s bare feet resting on the coffee table, balled up tissue between her toes. She had just spent the last half hour meticulously painting her toenails blood red and periodically leaning forward to test their dryness.

Bran was a patient man but she responded better to bluntness and apparently this had been too subtle. “What did you do, Leah? For five days. In the mountains.”

This got him a response. “Nothing in particular. Caught up with people. Went for runs in the snow. Took the sled out.” She gave him an ingenuous smile. “It was nice.”

‘Nice’, said his mate, a woman who was sparing with praise at all times. ‘Nice’ was practically a rousing endorsement. Of the people? The pack in general? Simply being there? “You don’t really speak of it. Your first pack,” he added.

“Why would I? It was more than two hundred years ago. Besides, my last few years before I met you, I spent with the pack in Boston.”

“Why?”

She sighed, sadly. “I didn’t get on with Antoinette that well.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “Why was that?” Bran asked, though he could take a leap, based on what he knew of his wife.

“She had plans for me that I didn't agree with.” Leah shrugged. “Wanted me to succeed her.”

With this astonishing piece of information, Leah asked him if there was something he would prefer to watch, as if he couldn’t possibly have any follow-up questions. He stared at the TV, having had no notion of what had been on screen before she paused. “I’ve been re-watching M*A*S*H.”

“Of course. Humanity at its best and worst.” Leah flicked to the menu deftly, cycled to the last unwatched episode. “I was devastated when Henry Blake died – he rather reminded me of George – but Colonel Potter grew on me.”

They sat and watched an episode together and he thought, just as his mind wasn’t paying attention to the show, neither was Leah’s. After a while, she paused and folded her hands on her stomach. “Why are you asking these questions? You’ve never done so before.”

Bran thought about it. “I haven’t. Perhaps I should have,” he said, slowly, picturing Nell’s laugh as she mentioned Antoinette’s disapproval and Leah’s tears at the first funeral, all those decades before. Something within him had shifted, it seemed. Dangerously. And he was allowing it.

“But we don’t talk about our pasts to each other.”

This was a slight fiction. Leah had, many times, asked him questions about his past and he answered depending on how relevant he thought her knowing the answer would be. Rarely he might volunteer information, usually in the form of a story or tale told for the amusement of their pack, or a lesson he had learned the hard way.

Bran had – deliberately – never asked Leah questions. Questions implied interest and it was preferable to their situation that the interest in their relationship was non-existent or one sided.

Now, more interestingly to Bran, he had noticed that Leah had never volunteered any stories of her own. Until this moment, he had assumed that was because there was little to say. There often _was_ little to say. Very few werewolves had ‘good’ experiences of the early years of their new lives, particularly if they had been born and Changed before the 1900s. Bran had rather hoped Anna’s early experiences of pack life had been something best left in centuries past – it had been a shock to him, a sign of his ill attention, that Leo had been allowed to continue the old ways.

Regardless, he sometimes forgot that Leah was comparatively young. She had been younger still when he had met her, a werewolf of only a few decades. What life experiences she’d had were few and far between, even if they had been traumatic. And the impression he’d had of her – self-centered, even spoiled – was not of trauma. Leah had been comfortable, in herself and with her wolf. She feared more dominant male werewolves but most females instinctively did, not least during a period when all women were subject to their menfolk.

“I would like to know now,” Bran decided.

Leah chewed her bottom lip, frowning heavily at him. Then she turned to look back at the television. “If anything interesting comes to me, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

That was not a ‘no’ but it wasn’t an unequivocal ‘yes’, either.

Bran decided he wouldn’t push it. He didn’t want to take this too far into dangerous territory for them. And between he and her, it would always be dangerous. 

*

At the back of the twenty-page folder that detailed their final candidates was a chart that Bran didn’t normally look at until after he had made his final selection. It was a print out of both Leah’s and Charles’s decisions, the third column left blank for his tick or cross.

He flicked through the candidates, whittled down now to a mere handful and all familiar faces to him. Then he looked at the chart. Leah had ticked four. Charles five. They overlapped only on two, two Bran knew immediately he also agreed on.

With more thoroughness than he would usually, Bran reviewed the other two Leah had picked and then went to find her in her office. He glanced up at where the sword had been before they had agreed to move it to her bedroom. There was a perfectly innocuous saber there now which Leah assured him had done nothing more violent than decapitating vampires. No one cared about decapitating vampires, most of all other vampires. He had no fears of offending anyone.

Bran knocked and then pushed open the door. She was – and this was amusing – sitting by her fire sewing. “Sam would be pleased,” he announced.

She looked puzzled and leaned over to turn down her music. “Why?”

“Ah. No reason.” Best not to explain that Sam considered Leah’s ‘office’ to be a misnomer, as if his mate had nothing ‘official’ she could possibly be doing. “May I?” He waved the folder at her and she nodded, gestured to the seat beside her.

His wife’s office was larger than his. When they had originally planned the house, it had indeed been intended for him. In reality, the room was naturally darker, which bothered him more than it did her and they had equably swapped spaces.

It was shaped like an L, with a desk in the shorter leg, facing out of the now-dark window, and on the longer outside leg a wall of shelves, packed full with books, magazines, maps and various boxes of crafts and hobbies she picked up and put down throughout the years. In the middle of this wall was a fireplace and two small couches, a little bigger than loveseats, facing each other. He often found her in here with Kara, sometimes Peggy. And of course with Sage.

He sat on the couch opposite. Leah continued working under his gaze. She was dressed casually – an oversized knitted sweater and leggings, thick fluffy socks, hair untidily bundled on top of her head. She looked cuddly, a word he would not normally apply to his wife and he certainly wouldn’t verbalize it. “I want to talk about why you think Emmanuel and Maita would make good wolves.”

Silently, Leah held out her hand, putting aside the shirt – his – to which she was reattaching buttons.

“I could probably have done that,” Bran said faintly, handing the folder over. The time when he expected his wife to sew buttons on his clothes seemed to have passed and now he felt the weight of the patriarchy on his shoulders. 

Her lips quirked, disbelievingly. “It’s been in the bottom of your closet for six months.”

True. “I… would have got to it eventually.”

“You’re more than welcome to have a go now.”

Bran acknowledged this by reaching for the shirt, the needle and the thread. He picked up where Leah had left off as she familiarized herself with the individuals he had asked after. After a few minutes, she shrugged. “Gut feel,” she said, with finality.

“That’s it?” There was nothing wrong with gut feel. Instincts existed for a reason – the translation of patterns seen and experienced before. She had been a werewolf for two-and-a-half centuries.

Leah shrugged again. She smoothed a hand over her sweater, pooling on her thighs, adjusting the hem. Bran knew he was making her nervous with his questions. She thought he was judging her methods, which he was not intending to. “Pretty much.”

“I looked back at the previous rounds. Your initial pass through had the same four people, plus three others who were culled after their psych evaluation.” Whereas both he and Charles had changed their views more significantly, he had noted. He wondered if he should ask Anna to analyze that, too. Whether Leah remained consistent. 

His mate blinked at him, clearly perplexed by the train of this conversation. “Okay?”

“Was it gut feel in the beginning? On paper? Or… maybe the video diaries?”

“Oh, the video diaries, definitely. And the interviews,” she said, waving a hand around airily. “I don’t get anything from the files, not really.”

Bran could understand that. He tended to like the paper reports because it gave him good background information. Education. History. Family profile. There was a personal statement that he tried not to set a great deal of store by, knowing they were now often coached. But seeing a person’s face, speaking to them, that was more valuable. Looking someone in the eye was unparalleled.

“What about the other three? On Charles’s list?”

Leah’s lip curled. “They wouldn’t make good changes. I don’t know why Charles perseveres with them. I’ve told him he’s wrong. He just ignores me.”

Thoughtfully, Bran tied off the button, snipped the ends and pushed the needle back in the pincushion in Leah’s sewing kit. As a rule, they didn’t discuss the process each of them went through to decide who would be the best candidates to Change. Sam had been right, in a sense. It was a death vote. They tried to keep it detached and professional.

Thanking her, he took back the folder and tossed his shirt over his shoulder. Back in his office, Bran hesitated over the final grid and then ticked the same four as Leah, potentially signing away two lives purely on a whim.

*

Bran didn’t actually recall much of the ceremony. The Hunter’s Moon in October had the strongest pull of the year, which meant he spent much of the day in meditation if the full moon fell late in the night. The only person he noticed with any degree of detail was his mate, whose spirit was tied to him more closely, the musical bond a louder accompaniment to his day than he normally allowed. His mate who became simply Mate, a being who was nothing but peppery scent and mint to him, a visage of blue and gold. It was she who took his hand and walked him out to meet the final candidates, who squeezed his bones and whispered their names so he could repeat them, one by one.

There were others who would perform the ceremony with them. Who would make the attempt to turn their own, the presence and power of their Marrok adding fuel to their fire.

‘Ceremony’. Such a grand term for what was going to happen. As Bran took his wolf’s form and sunk his teeth into their trembling, waiting flesh, watched them die before his eyes and poured his will into them. _Change_ , he prayed. _Change_. Ceremony indeed. Rite, would be a better term. Ritual. Sacrifice.

Unlike other werewolves, Bran could Change more than one human on this night. He was the Marrok, the Alpha of all. He clamped his canines and ripped and tore and willed them to survive. And when he staggered back, it was the Mate who held him, the Mate who licked blood from his face, who was there when he Changed back into the human body, who cradled him in her arms and whispered his name. “Bran,” she said, smoothing her hands over his head, his hair, his back. “Come back to me, Bran.”

Bran came back, he always did. The long night after required his presence, after all, as they stood by, waiting. Some died, immediately, and the air was rife with grief. Leah fed him her homemade beef jerky, her eyes lowered, playing the submissive mate for this night and this night alone.

Bran watched as one by one, the four he had torn into, whose flesh he had held in his jaw, awoke with their own unique wolf spirits reflected in his eyes. Relief coursed through him – today, this night, he was no murderer, he had given a gift of a new life. Leah leaned against his side, kissed his cheek, her own relief palpable.

It was Anna’s turn, then. She was the one who was the escort of their newly Changed to their temporary homes for the next twelve months as they continued to assess their viability. That they had survived the Change was one thing – now they would need to control their wolves, need to demonstrate their abilities to be fine, upstanding citizens in Bran’s army.

There was a feast afterwards – no rite would be complete without one. Calories were packed away, it was boisterous and loud, with singing and music, spontaneous and planned. Just as the sun rose, Bran took his son to one side, smiling, and whispered in his ear, “I want you to look at the data again. Tell me about the patterns.”

Charles inclined his head, a faint, amused smile on his face. “You think Anna is on to something?”

“Perhaps she has a particular ability,” Bran murmured, glancing over to where his wife was describing something to George and Peggy, using expansive gestures. Whatever it was, Peggy was smiling broadly, eyes crinkling and George was tipping his head back and laughing.

Sometimes werewolves developed new powers or enhancements, more than the strength and healing abilities that existed from the day they Changed. Leah was young to demonstrate these kinds of skills and he had never heard of anyone with the capability of detecting who could successfully Change.

But stranger things had happened in Bran’s lifetime.

Leah turned in her story, her sharp eyes finding his across the room. She gave him a quizzical look, _Who me?_ she seemed to say. She knew they were talking about her.

Bran pointed upstairs and she smirked. Then, Leah clapped her hands together and raised her voice, “All right, party’s over, everyone go home. Take whatever food you want from the buffet; you know where the Tuppaware is.”

She made her way over to him and gave Charles a stern look. “That includes you. I should imagine Anna is home by now. Take her some pie.”

Well used to Leah’s abrupt manner, Charles agreed readily, one hand resting on Bran’s shoulder and squeezing. “I’ll do that. Thank you,” he added. “See you tomorrow.”

*

The little mystery of his wife was a pleasant task for his son, who took surprisingly long over what Bran could only assume was not a difficult process. When he returned to Bran to present the information, Charles explained that he had ‘cut the data’ a variety of different ways. He started with Bran’s specific request – analyzing the results of the first cut of the applicants in comparison with the last.

“You were right,” Charles said, his eyes glittering with interest and he put up a chart on the bigger screen on Bran’s wall. “She doesn’t deviate. Whoever she picks in the first round continue to be the same afterwards. I had noted that in the past but assumed it was sheer stubbornness, her inability to admit that she is wrong.”

Bran, whose wolf had a heightened sense of defensiveness towards Leah, agreed. Had he noted it, it would have also been what he would think.

“I also compared three other sets of data to define averages of successful Changes. The first set, if you and I agreed, the second if you and Leah agreed, but I didn’t. The third if Leah and I agreed, but you didn’t.” He clicked a button on his laptop and the screen changed.

Bran blinked. “If Leah and I agree, it has nearly a ninety-percent chance of being successful?” That could not be right. His eyes scanned across the colorful page. If it was Charles and Leah, it was lower – seventy-three-percent. If she disagreed, it was much closer to what he considered to be the reality, which was around half.

Now Bran understood the excitement that was emanating from his son. He sat forward in his chair, rubbing his hands together. “Is there more?”

Charles clicked on and stood so he could point to the screen, where three pie charts sat side by side. “Yes. I looked at the data from before, with Sam. I did the same sort of analysis – when you and he agreed, but I didn’t. When you and I did, but he didn’t etcetera. If it’s you and one of us, it’s always a bit higher but the numbers are always what we tend to think. Only half of all Changes are successful.”

A statistic Bran had never mentally really updated and one he repeated to anyone who asked. “Unless Leah is involved.”

Charles nodded. “And, I think, she is even better with females.” He reached back to his computer and tapped the forward key. “I removed all male candidates from the data, here. It’s a much smaller sample, obviously.”

Bran let out a breath. “She has almost one-hundred-percent accuracy.”

“Yes.”

Bran stared at the screen. “Can you go back to the chart comparing the three of us, please?” he asked, politely.

Charles did so and Bran stared at it. And stared. “Is there any other explanation? Any… similarities in the candidates? Does she know any of them?”

“I’ve done some other models, looking at age, race, even—” Charles smirked, “— attractiveness. But there are no obvious patterns.”

Bran withheld the urge to roll his eyes. Attractiveness, good grief. Even Leah would not be swayed by that. “And the sample size is big enough to be comparable? It couldn’t just be luck?”

“There are around one-hundred candidates a year, though that number is growing. By the final cut there are usually a half a dozen left. It’s a fair sample, I think.” Charles stuck his hands into his pockets, obviously as restless as Bran was. He leaned back on his heels. “I was thinking – we are supplied with information about the candidates that are Changed by others. What if we tested her? Showed her their profiles, their videos. See if she could predict who would be successful. Get a sample of just her responses.”

Bran wasn’t certain. “I have a few concerns about that. One, often they’re Changed here, so she might recognize them, so the results might be biased. Two, from what she has told me, the face to face interviews are part of her process, which obviously we couldn’t do. And three… I’m not sure I want her to know.”

Charles’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”

He didn’t want to discuss his reasons for that just yet. “The Quebec pack, do you know much about them?”

“Quebec?” His son, well used to Bran’s change in topics, shook his head and went to take his seat again. “That’s Leah’s old pack, isn’t it? In the Laurentians?”

“Yes.”

“Not much. Relatively new Alpha – Logan – he was the Second to the one who died in the middle of the Twentieth Century.” Charles narrowed his eyes. “Guillaume Bisset, wasn’t it? It’s not very big, I don’t think. Twenty wolves plus their humans? Keep themselves to themselves. Certainly we’ve never had any problems with them but then they’re very remote.”

“I met the original Alpha long ago, before I met your mother, even. He was one of the first to agree to join with the Marrok,” Bran explained, trying to picture Bisset and failing, “and then I headed east. I think I corresponded with him perhaps twice.”

“You went to the funeral.”

“Yes. It was in Montreal – held there more for everyone else’s convenience than anything else. The body had been buried already; the casket was empty.”

Leaning back, Bran looked up at his ceiling, trying to recall any pertinent details. It had seemed there had been a lot of people there, far more than just the pack itself if Charles’s estimate on its size was correct. The Montreal Alpha had been present, along with quite a few of his people, and the Newfoundland Alpha and his mate. It wasn’t uncommon for nearby packs to come and show their respects even if ‘nearby’ was truly comparative.

Leah had said Antoinette had been ‘incapacitated’, which he had taken to mean she was suffering from the death of her mate, the loss of the mating bond. He assumed not all of the pack had attended the funeral, as many would have stayed behind to tend to her.

Bran had met the new Alpha, Logan Dubois, at the funeral and they had exchanged the usual condolences. He had a very vivid – surprisingly vivid, given the time that had passed – memory of the man leaning forward to kiss Leah’s cheek, his hand curving around her waist. It was a bold thing to do, kiss another Alpha’s mate in front of him. Bran had affected disinterest whilst the wolf inside had clawed him in protest.

“Da, if she can predict—”

Bran shushed his son, holding up a finger. “I understand the implications.”

Charles settled back in frustration. “Why the questions about the Laurentian pack? She wasn’t with them for very long, surely. Twenty? Thirty years?”

“She never speaks of them.” Something about it, something was niggling him after all this time.

“Well, Leah’s never been chatty, has she? Besides, like most of us, after a while it’s better to focus on the present.”

His son was right. It was an ethos most wolves who had seen a human lifetime pass already took up. There was only so much room for memories and loss. And, no, Leah was not ‘chatty’. For a werewolf, she was very self-sufficient – preferring her own company or a very select few – and she also didn’t reflect the way many did. She said what she thought or she said nothing at all. 

Bran had an idea. “Do you know Mark Saunders? Second in the Texas pack?”

Charles nodded. “Yes, we’ve met a couple of times. And Sam spoke of him highly.”

“His mate, Sarah, is from the Laurentian pack. Perhaps she would be willing to answer a few questions.”

His son double blinked at him. “Why are we asking her when we could ask Leah?”

“Because, in a round-a-bout way, I’m going to be asking her about Leah.”

Charles, it was clear, did not approve. He closed his eyes, as if pained. “Da…”

“And the pack. She was part of it, long after Leah was.” There. That sounded better. He almost convinced himself.

*

As a general rule, they received very little post in the mailbox at the end of their drive, though it was part of Bran’s morning ritual that he strolled down in the morning to check it, just as it was Leah’s to head off for a run as soon as it was light.

Usually, Bran would stand over the recycling trash can in their kitchen and toss in the variety of different junk they would received. Catalogues. Fliers for services, for restaurants claiming to do delivery as far out as they were that were inevitably incorrect. The local newspaper – this Bran kept to peruse over breakfast. He enjoyed the human interest stories. 

Today, there was a hand written letter addressed to himself, with air mail stamps that told him it was from Europe, France specifically. Another update from an old friend on the ongoing situation that was the power vacuum left by Chastel, which was proving to be a mixed blessing. And a padded manila envelope for Leah.

An avid online shopper, Leah regularly received parcels to the house – but these were always by courier, in branded boxes, and this was a distinctly personal parcel, her address written with sloped, feminine handwriting. He flipped it. Sure enough, the return address was in Quebec. With no shame, he felt out the edges of the content. Bendy, perhaps half an inch thick. A book? He sniffed it but couldn’t discern anything in particular, not after its journey here.

He sat the envelope up against the fruit bowl on their kitchen counter, her name facing the bowl rather than the outside, and then, because it was his turn, he set about making breakfast.

The bacon was nearly crisp when he heard her come in. “Showering!” she called, not waiting for a response as she pounded up the stairs.

She returned, flushed from her run and her shower, her hair wet in a loose plait down her back, and hopped onto the bar stool at the end of the island. “Thank you,” she said, as she accepted the plate of bacon and scrambled eggs. She reached for a piece of toast. “Saw a grizzly today.”

“Not up close, I hope.”

Leah smiled and began to apply a thick layer of butter, knife scraping quickly. “No.”

Bran sprinkled hot sauce over his eggs. “There’s a parcel for you,” he said, nodding to the envelope.

She chewed her toast and picked up the envelope, turned it over to check her name and then looked at the return address. “Photos,” she said decisively. “From the funeral. Phina was going to send some.”

He filed ‘Phina’ away. “I’d love to see them.”

His wife’s lips quirked. “I’m sure you would. And you shall. And you can ask me all the questions you want.” This last was delivered in a flirtatious way and he found himself responding with his own smile.

Licking her fingers, Leah opened the envelope and pulled out a wad of photographs, wrapped in a handwritten note. She scanned this – it wasn’t long – and put it to one side. “Here. I’m starving. Have a look first.”

Bran supposed he could have played it ‘cool’ and finished his meal, rather than putting his fork down and picking up the glossy pack of photographs almost before she had offered. He flicked through them once, seeing immediately that they weren’t actually of the funeral itself but afterwards. Shots of snowy landscapes and figures in full winter gear, furred hoods and almost indistinguishable features. Someone posing on a snowmobile. A sled, huskies at rest. Low buildings set in feet of snow. He got so used to passing through these scenes, uninteresting to him, that when he came upon the chaotic ‘indoor’ scenes, he almost continued at the same speed and then had to force himself to stop.

The first photograph was taken in a kitchen, a woman Bran didn’t recognize with her hands in a bowl of something that was making her face scrunch up in disgust. There was another woman next to her, blurred in movement, clearly sharing her laughter with someone out of shot. He moved on to the next, this time a shot of a man lying on the floor, hands over his face. Just in the corner, he saw part of someone’s face, clearly bent over in laughter as well. Another man, he thought.

He finally found one of his wife, leaning against a kitchen counter, looking ineffably Leah-like, her eyebrows raised in derision. But her body language was relaxed, her hair loose and a little untidy, and dangling from her fingers was a half-full glass of wine. There was a grey-and-white dappled dog at her feet, a husky breed, looking up at her eagerly as if expecting a treat.

Bran put that photograph aside, whimsically thinking he would like to frame it.

Twenty photographs later, Bran had five more images of her that he wanted to keep and about twice as many questions.

He ate his breakfast, eggs now lukewarm, and Leah made herself a coffee. She looked quizzically at the photos he had picked out, then flicked through the others, a half-smile on her face at all times. He wondered at the thoughts going through her mind. The names, the faces all had meaning to her. She had enjoyed herself – her good mood had been indicative of that.

“I think my first question is – are they all current members of the pack?”

She shook her head. “Most of them, but not all. Sarah,” she indicated a bright-eyed black woman, with curling, natural hair, “is mated to the Second of a Texas pack. I forget which one. Felix, here, he’s in Syracuse. And Lauren’s in Mexico, actually.”

There were probably a little under thirty other people in the photos. Plus a few children. One, a baby, was in one of the photos Bran had selected. It wasn’t often he saw his mate holding a baby with such ease. She tended to avoid children until they were old enough to be ‘safe’ and had once, in earshot of a new mother, asked if most babies smelled like a particularly delicious snack to anyone else or was it just her. Bran was almost certain she had been joking.

“I presume some are human.”

“Yes.”

He finished his eggs and reached for a now cold piece of toast and some apricot preserves. “By my count, more than half of the pack is female.”

Leah seemed to think about this. “I guess so.” She didn’t seem particularly surprised or indeed interested in this fact, though she would very much be aware that most packs would only have a handful of women.

The cogs of Bran’s mind were rolling forward, working out how such an unusual pack demographic would be possible. 

Inter-pack transfers weren’t controlled by the Marrok. He could encourage them, of course, and sometimes he suggested them, but if a wolf wanted to move packs, it was an agreement made with his or her Alpha and then word would simply be got out. It did tend to mean that Bran would hear of movements, particularly if they were women. Women were, to be blunt, often ‘snapped up’ quite quickly. Things had been known to get competitive.

He supposed it was plausible that the Laurentian pack exchanged personnel with the one in Montreal or Newfoundland. That might not get back to him.

But all Changes were run through Bran. Without question. It was one of his earliest edicts.

“Do you know all of these people?” he asked quietly, tapping a photograph. “From when you were part of this pack?”

Leah sipped her coffee. “Most,” she said, a frown line appearing in the middle of her smooth forehead.

“If I asked you to list them all, could you do it?”

She sighed. “Yes, but stop beating about the bush, Bran, and just ask me what you really want to know.”

Fine. “Is the Laurentian pack Changing werewolves without my permission?”

Her delicate eyebrows lifted. “No,” she said, the single word ringing with truth.

They locked eyes for a long moment. Then Bran snorted. “I see. Was the Laurentian pack Changing werewolves without my permission?”

She smiled easily, almost as if she approved of his question, as if she thought him clever. “I believe all that stopped when Guillaume died, Bran. Certainly, no one in that pack is younger than sixty.”

He narrowed his eyes, tasting duplicity. “Did you know?”

“No, I had very little contact with them. Antoinette and I did not get on, as I told you.”

Again, this was true. But Bran’s irritation was a low-level simmer. If not her duplicity, then definitely one of his packs'. In some senses, the edict over Changes was stricter now than it ever had been before – because they had the technology, the rigor, to enforce it. It used to be he would receive ‘accidental’ Change requests retrospectively by mail or telegram. Little he could do about that, just make a note of any repeat offenders and if they really were overstepping the mark, Charles would be dispatched to deal with them.

“But you suspected.”

She put down her cup and licked her lips. “I truthfully did not dwell on it. And why would I? When I left that pack for yours, you only had half the territories of North America in your control. You were focusing on that, not on who was Changing who and the quality of those Changes. When you introduced the measures you did, it was a full century after I had left. Why would I think of my old pack, Bran? They were only doing what they had always done; I would have assumed they stopped like everyone else. Or else faced the retribution of your son.”

She wasn’t lying. And yet – still – something was bothering him, more than the fact of Changes taking place without his permission. Was it to do with Leah? Perhaps not. His intuition, usually reliable, was pinging. 

“Thank you for answering my questions,” Bran said, politely, as she began to clear away the plates, rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher.

“You don’t have any more?”

“Not at this time.”

“All right. What do you want with those?” Leah asked, nodding at the photographs leaning against the fruit bowl.

“If you’re amenable, I thought it might be pleasant to put them on the mantelpiece.” The large mantle in their living room was where all their immediate family photographs were. Images of holidays and birthdays that they carefully reviewed each year when the photos themselves started to look dated. But they were heavily dominated by Bran’s family, though of course Leah was featured in a few. It was a balance that could be addressed now in the interest of fairness. Yes, fairness.

This surprised her. And clearly pleased her. “Truly? All right. I’ll find some frames.”

Leah made to leave, to scoop up the photos but at the last minute, in a move he had not known he was going to make, Bran snatched the one of just her, with the husky at her feet. “Except this one. I want this one.” He managed not to add _for my desk_ because he knew how that sounded. There were no photographs or mementos on his desk.

Leah’s expression softened but with confusion. “His name is Rolf,” she said.

“The dog?” Bran queried, as if the dog could possibly be the root of his interest.

“Yes. His many-times-great-grandfather was my dog. Once we were Changed, Antoinette gave each of us a puppy. To teach us to be gentle,” she added.

“What a fascinating idea,” Bran murmured in surprise. He enjoyed out-of-the-box thinking.

“I swear he knew me, too,” she laughed, walking off, pushing through the swing door of their kitchen. “Isn’t that crazy?”

He looked down at the photograph, at the look of adoration in the dog’s eye. “Crazy,” he repeated, when she was long out of earshot.

*

“You and Leah seem to be on good terms at the moment.”

Bran looked around, up at the clouds, the trees, as if searching for something. “Is the world ending? Is that… the sound of locusts? For surely you cannot be speaking positively of my marriage.”

Asil snorted and then sighed, soulfully. “It’s the wit I’ll miss when I’m gone.”

“Oh – are you taking a vacation?”

The two men smiled at each other, briefly in accord. If Asil had ever truly been going to snap, it would have been when he had tortured and then killed Sage, his erstwhile lover, for her betrayal. But he had returned – saddened, wounded certainly, but he had returned. He was one of Bran’s most reliable wolves, now, and these days it felt like he needed them.

And, if he was honest with himself, Asil – who knew what it was to lose a mate – was best placed to have sympathized with Bran’s situation after Sage’s betrayal. Very few wolves of their age could appreciate that special agony of a mate’s death and have survived the experience. Asil had been, for him, kind to Bran and was one of the few who had also acknowledged Leah’s situation.

“Surprised she didn’t knife you,” he had said to Bran, a few weeks after the fact. “Or shoot you.” He aimed at Bran’s head. “Silver bullets.”

Bran admitted he had been surprised at Leah’s ready forgiveness. “But then,” he had sighed. “We have done worse to each other.”

Asil’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Truly?”

He was not proud of it. “Unfortunately.”

“You have been married a long time, of course,” Asil said, gently, his words reminding Bran that in almost all senses, his relationship with Leah was very successful. Two centuries of companionship was nothing to sniff at. By comparison, Bran had nearly forty years with his first wife – a lifetime in those days – and only a handful with his second before she had been taken from him. 

He used to think it was ironic that he’d had so little time with them, women he had loved with ease, and yet the woman he had emotionally divorced himself from was the longest lived. And yet… he was coming to believe that was not quite true any more, this 'divorce'. Even if it had taken two centuries to see that. Though there was certainly no ‘ease’ about it.

Feet tramped loudly through crackling dry twigs to their left and Kara emerged through the young firs, face a thunder-cloud. “Ugh. Finally,” she said, glancing at the row of three werewolves patiently seated on the log behind Asil and Bran. Her face grew darker as she realized they were all ‘younger’ wolves than her. 

“Anna hasn’t got here yet,” Bran said, reluctantly sympathetic. For no particular reason, Kara reminded him of daughters of his past and thus held a special place in his heart. 

Kara’s face lit up. “Seriously?” She pumped a fist in the air triumphantly.

“Nothing to be proud of. Your tracking ability is execrable,” Asil said tetchily, clearly most annoyed with his protégée. He glowered at her. “What happened?”

“It’s hard on two feet,” Kara muttered, stomping past them and going to sit between Claude and Jesus, both of whom gave her consoling looks. At the end of the row, Gail, who was still maintaining a distinctly obvious disinterest in Asil, was unmoved, instead staring at her nails. “And dull.”

Anna’s arrival was a little more sheepish. “In my defense,” she began, then paused. She tapped her chin. “All right. I have no defense. I got completely distracted by a bird; it was bright red!”

Bran frowned at his daughter-in-law, who was a very good tracker – and ought to be, married to Charles as she was. “Anna, you should be taking this seriously.”

His daughter-in-law gave him hot eyes. She wasn’t without pride. “I will. On the actual day.”

The newly established Shadow Day was a competition that anyone in the Aspen Creek pack could enter, but was mandatory for any new Changes of fewer than ten years. This still – just – included Anna as well as Kara, the previous year’s Changes and the few who had decided to stay with the pack in the last decade. Leah had recused herself from the experience, claiming she was ‘too competitive’ which Bran took to mean she would take out her competition – violently and unfairly – but he was expecting the rest of the stable Aspen Creek pack to compete. It would be a big competition – around fifty wolves – and if successful he planned to repeat it every year, to mark the beginning of Spring.

It had been Leah’s idea initially, floated over one of their more amicable Sunday dinners. She liked establishing entertainments for the pack but barbeques and musical socials and runs were apparently repetitive and boring. For her, he suspected. They couldn’t have ‘team games’ because there would be bloodshed and the same went for any other competitions involving one-on-one competition – chess, tennis, squash, badminton. Setting a trail for wolves to follow, a discrete twenty minutes apart, timed and awarded, would surely be safe? And educational.

Bran hoped, for Leah’s sake, it worked. She had put a great deal of effort into the occasion, along with Charles and Tag who had been roped in as well. There were prizes for the fastest, prizes for the slowest, prizes for the most imaginative – Bran didn’t know what ‘imaginative’ tracking would be but both Leah and Charles claimed they would know it when they saw it.

Today, Bran and Asil had offered a ‘test’ run for anyone who wanted practice. A few had taken them up on the offer and Bran had to admit, it had been remarkably entertaining setting up the trail. Asil had called him ‘cruel’ for the number of times he’d run the scent trail through water and then laughed and made additional challenging suggestions himself.

After a few minutes, the remaining four werewolves from the most recent year’s Change arrived. They’d done a fair job of it, being only a few months Changed and less experienced all-round. All four were looking to be successful in controlling their wolves and each time he thought of that, Bran thought of his mate’s potential ability, his brain coming to a halt with the idea that she, and she alone, might be able to solve their population crisis.

But no, Bran told himself, time and time again, it wasn’t possible.

The last wolf, the only female of the four Bran had Changed, was in Leah’s company. His mate had been following them at a discrete distance, giving tips and advice if asked, making sure that no one got into any trouble. Leah wore a particularly blank expression, the closest she could get to abject politeness that really meant she was trying to mask boredom. Lilian liked to talk.

Leah clearly hadn’t reached the point she usually did – where she ordered Lilian to be quiet – but she sighed with relief when she reached Bran and Lilian made her way to the join the others. He laughed silently at her. “Shut up,” she muttered, scratching her nose.

He bumped her shoulder with his and avoided meeting Asil’s eyes. “All done, then. Let’s head back.”

It started raining as they hiked back to Aspen Creek, passing snacks and bottles of water back and forth between them. Bran could hear Lilian talking Kara’s ear off and the teenager responding in kind. Asil was holding a one-sided conversation with Gail that was causing Leah to repeatedly snort. Anna was interrogating Claude, an amateur ornithologist, on ‘red birds’ that might be native to Montana. 

“It really sounds like a Scarlet Tanager,” he was saying enthusiastically, “which doesn’t make much sense. They’re an east coast bird. When we’re back at the house, I’ll show you on my cell phone. I’ve got a fantastic app, you know, that can detect bird song. I’ve found it incredibly useful here.”

Leah looked sharply towards Bran. Birdsong, she mouthed, her face creasing with a form of shocked amusement. Claude had been a retired veterinarian, a man who had dealt with domestic animals for most of his career until he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The thought that he, so newly Changed, could still have a love for such small prey was a good sign. A gentle werewolf was a rarity, particularly given Claude was not a submissive.

And they needed a veterinarian in the pack. 

Devilry overtaking him, Bran cleared his throat. “What’s the app, Claude? Leah loves birds.”

His wife gave him a comically betrayed look, Claude not having the experience to detect lies of the Marrok's level of sophistication.

Claude’s beam was full and excited and he sped up so he could catch up with them. “Indeed? It’s called the Merlin Bird ID. You can upload a photo or if you don’t have a photo – often, I don’t, because I’m not fast enough – you answer five questions and then it’ll give you suggestions. It’s really marvelous. I cannot recommend it enough. I’ve learned so much here.”

His enthusiasm was charming and Leah was charmed. Bran saw her face fall – the moment of her rebuttal collapsing as she looked at him, took in his harmless enthusiasm. “I shall… look it up, Claude,” his wife said, exhaling loudly. “Of course, I mostly use the books in Bran’s library. He has so many. He’s the real bird watcher in the family.”

Bran acknowledged that turnabout was fair play and accepted Claude’s enthusiastic conversation with ease. He did like birds, after all.

*

“Do you still want to do it? Ask Sarah about Leah?”

Bran twiddled his thumbs. For weeks, he had put off Charles contacting Mark, requesting a conversation with his mate, because it had seemed… tasteless. Unnecessary? He couldn’t decide.

He still wanted an outsider's insight into the Laurentian pack but to do so behind Leah’s back seemed unappetizing. Charles had dug up the numbers of the pack and Bran had reviewed them, using Leah’s photographs to attempt to put names to faces. The ages matched to what Leah had claimed. Perhaps they really had stopped the unauthorized Changes with the new Alpha which, if that were the case, Bran was not in a position to punish anyone since the man had corrected the ways of the pack with his succession. If it had been an edict from the previous Alpha, they would have all had to obey.

Honestly, Bran was aware that this care he was taking was unusual. Normally he took what he wanted, when he needed it and cared little for who he hurt in the process. Leah would forgive him; she always did. Eventually.

Bran looked at the folders of one-hundred new applicants, stacked on the left of his desk where all his ‘outstanding’ tasks always were. It had been half a year since the last full moon ceremony and they were already beginning again.

“What did Anna say?”

His son affected a bland look. “Anna?”

“When you told her, about Leah.” Bran knew well that Charles shared nearly everything with Anna. It had taken time for Bran to get used to that, this extension to the small circle of knowledge in his family. No longer just him, Charles and Sam. But their wives, too. “About our theory.”

Charles blew out a breath. “She was excited. Happy, for Leah. She wanted to know why you didn’t want to tell her.”

“Presumably you said because we weren’t convinced.”

“I… did say that.”

He tapped a finger on his desk. “You hesitated.”

“It’s not the only reason why you don’t want to tell Leah, is it, Da.”

Bran picked up a heavy Mont Blanc pen. A gift from his wife for Christmas. Expensive. Ridiculous. But it wrote superbly well and he loved it. She had also spent the last year meticulously creating a wine profile for him, based on observing which of the wines from her subscription he enjoyed. She’d given him a curated case of twelve new wines to try.

Bran sighed, out loud.

Of course, there were many reasons he didn’t want Leah to know. It might go to her head. She might get nervous. Perhaps it would taint her abilities, if she had them. She might think she was special. More special, Bran amended. She was his mate. That made her ‘special’ enough. Leah was plenty pleased with that.

“It’s mostly the reason,” he said, for that was true as well.

Bran brushed his fingers over the edges of the folders. There was a password encrypted flash drive taped to the front of each file with the first video diary. “Let’s— all make a first pass. Our initial thoughts. Yes, or no,” Bran suggested.

Charles raised an eyebrow. “Of all one hundred of them.”

“Yes. You and I… well, don’t spend too much time on it. But we’ll ask Leah to do a thorough job. And get all the other candidates, from the other Alphas. Add them to the mix.”

“For the purpose of what, increasing the sample size?” Charles gestured with his hand, spreading his long fingers out. “You know, realistically, the only way you will be satisfied with this is if we aren’t so stringent with our rules and put forward more to be Changed. Maybe get a few more Alphas lined up to turn them.”

Bran did know that. But the rules were there for a reason and he truly believed they made a difference in the quality of their wolves, particularly the ones he didn’t personally know. “We can do that. With the final cut. Instead of half a dozen, we can take more – maybe all if Leah thinks they are capable of Changing.”

He pressed his lips together. This was still a risk. He could Change, personally, up to six with confidence. Charles could do one, which was no reflection of his power, more a reflection of his confidence and experience. Who else could they rely upon to be discrete? Angus, of course. The Alphas in Colorado. “Hauptman needs more people,” he murmured, twirling the solid pen in his hand. 

“I’m not sure Adam has ever Changed anyone.”

“No. But he’s dominant enough to start.”

Charles smirked. “Even though he’s technically not one of ours?”

“Technically.” That was something they would have to deal with. He couldn’t have Hauptman here, with his other Alphas. That would truly fly in the face of the bargain he had made with the fae. “Perhaps we don’t use the October moon. It’s not absolutely necessary. Just a help." And they had long been of the belief that they could use every bit of help. 

“You could guide him through it.”

“That’s true. I could."

His son continued to play Devil's advocate. "But there’s also the following months to think of. The first year is crucial.”

Bran grunted. “Young he might be, but inexperienced he’s not. Well. We’re not there yet and I think that’s the start of a plan, at least. I’ll think on it some more.”

*

As a consequence of requesting that Leah make her first decisions now – rather than after the first or second ‘cull’ they usually made based on the background checks that pulled up undeclared issues – Bran did not see a great deal of his wife in the next few days.

Plus, in the middle of this exercise, they held the first Shadow Day, which involved a few very late nights and one all-nighter from Leah, Charles and Tag as they laid trails on fresh ground. 

Bran – who was supposed to be impartial and would only be at the finish line – heard his mate climb out of bed at 3am with sympathy. And then rolled over and went back to sleep. There was no point both of them being tired.

As he had expected, nearly all of the Aspen Creek pack were participating. They had each been given a timeslot to start and, to ensure the ‘game’ was fair, split into three different groups with different trails so the scent wouldn’t be too disturbed. Based on experience, Leah had told him they thought the trail would take an excellent tracker three hours, an average one four. The weak ones might be at it most of the day. They had more or less scheduled the less experienced wolves to start first thing, for that reason.

When Bran reached the finish point at just before 10am, having done a couple of hours of work, it was to find Leah and Charles had set up a very authoritative looking ‘judging’ table, complete with whiteboard with the names of all the wolves involved, their start time, their finish time and total all marked up on a grid.

There was also, obviously, a refreshments table. He made himself a coffee and perused his wolves on the board, sipping the steaming drink. If he were a betting man, he would place two bets. One on Hannah Gregory, who had been Changed four years ago, whom even Leah was impressed by. Another on Mingan, just celebrated his first century, a quiet man whose senses were sharp. They had often used him to track down wildlings who had gone off piste when Asil was not available.

He returned to his mate and son, both of whom were reading – Leah a magazine, Charles a novel.

“This is exciting,” he said drily.

“You should have come in an hour,” Leah told him, lowering her magazine. “Asil says Gail is doing surprisingly well.”

Asil was placed at the third check-point, the last one before the finish line, where all three trails crossed. Another challenge when perhaps his wolves might think they were home free. “Why surprisingly?” he asked.

Charles cleared his throat, amused. “We’ve been running some smaller training sessions with the new Changes. He thinks she’s been deliberately downplaying her abilities.”

Bran barked out a laugh. “I see. A strategist. Very good.”

For Bran, it was a great day. They had been expecting that those who completed the trail would take the opportunity to go home, refresh themselves and return for the awards ceremony at the main house in the evening. That was not the case – as each participant finished and watched their times being tallied on the board, they took a seat in the small clearing to cheer on their pack-mates. A few were dispatched for more refreshments and picnic blankets to make the surroundings more habitable. Bets were being placed on overall winners – George making notes on the notebook he habitually carried around, chewing the pencil that was normally behind his ear. 

The atmosphere was spirited and enthusiastic. Everyone had clearly enjoyed themselves – even if some were rueful at their lack of skills. He overheard commitments being made to improve, offers to teach one another, and smiled, remembering Leah’s belief that Shadow Day would not only be fun but educational. It seemed she was right.

“Next year, I think we should have tiers,” Bran announced, dropping down into the chair vacated by Charles, who had gone to congratulate Anna enthusiastically with a rare public display of affection.

“Next year?” Leah’s eyes dragged away from where Charles and Anna were looped around each other behaving more like newlyweds than a couple who had nearly a decade together. But Leah’s gaze was not envious, more faintly baffled. Perhaps she still didn’t think Charles was capable of affection. Well, she’d had ten years to get used to that too.

“Definitely,” Bran said, tapping his fingers on the table to get her attention. “Maybe by age. So we can have individual class winners.”

She nodded, swiveling on her chair so she could face him and not his son. “We could use the results from this year to help us, perhaps. To classify people.” She smiled at him widely, seeking his approval. “You’re happy then?”

“Very.” Bran stood, patting her shoulder, the only public display of affection she would get from him.

*

Perhaps it was a pattern he could have predicted. A great high always followed with a great low and in his marriage there was nothing truer. Biting the bullet, Bran asked Charles to request a meeting with Sarah, she of the Laurentian pack. 

“What are you talking to Sarah about?” Leah asked him that afternoon, walking through the open door of his office. Her tone was perfectly conversational, not remotely suspicious.

Bran reflected he could have guessed Leah might still be in touch with Sarah. Or at least Sarah would feel she could get in touch with Leah.

He thought for a moment. “She more recently left the Laurentian pack than you. I wanted to understand the set-up, better,” he said, which was true and certainly he would be focusing on that more than anything else.

Her nose wrinkled. “Oh, still harking on about that, are we?”

This irritated him. “They broke the law.”

“They didn’t. Guillaume and Antoinette did. Both are dead. Besides, it’s not as if they weren’t good at it, Bran. They knew who would make a good change.”

To have Leah so baldly state it gave Bran pause. “They knew who would make a good change.”

“Yes, of course,” Leah said, clearly implying Bran was being stupid. “Like I can.”

If Bran hadn’t already been sitting, he would have sat down. “Like you can,” he repeated, like a broken record.

His mate walked more fully into the room, instead of standing in the doorway. She had a slightly wondering tilt to her head. “Yes?”

“You can… know who would make a good change,” Bran clarified. Because clarity was important here.

“Yes? Obviously.”

Impatiently, Bran scoffed. “No, Leah, not obviously. Since when—” He stopped himself as Leah’s eyes widened with dawning understanding.

“I did tell you this,” his mate said.

Bran’s mouth dropped at this outrageous statement. “I beg your pardon, Leah, but you did not.”

“I did. I told you I would be good at it,” Leah claimed, her eyes kindling. “I told you that you had to include me in the Change process because I would be better at it than Sam and Charles. I told you.”

He let out a strangulated laugh as the phrasing of her words momentarily struck a chord. Could it be true? Put as baldly as she had termed it, it sounded very much like something she would say. “Leah, that’s not— not quite—” Bran groaned and covered his face with his hands. “If so, I didn’t know that this was what you meant.”

“I see. You just thought I was being needlessly boastful.”

Pulling at his face, he glanced at her. The hot look had continued, her hands clenching hard at her sides at the injustice of it.

“Yes, I did,” Bran sighed, carefully placing his palms flat on his desk. Calmly, he reviewed what he remembered. She had annoyed him. For weeks, he had tuned her out as she made her demands to be included in the process. It had been the latest in what Bran had seen as her continued attempts to usurp his sons in his affections or at least in terms of his respect. He had assumed it had been a power play and an unsubtle one, as her power plays tended to be. He had dismissed her. Utterly.

But Bran remembered she had kept going on the topic far, far longer than any other in their long history, even after he had repeatedly told her no, that there was no discussion to be had on the matter. He distinctly recalled speaking to Sam and saying Leah has a real bee in her bonnet about this and Sam rolling his eyes as if his step-mother was a trial to them all.

He had only agreed – a galling thought – because Sam did not care. It had been Sam who had begrudgingly said that Leah was just, if not more experienced than Charles, and perhaps having a female vote would add a better dimension to the decision.

Sam, who had been reasonable, not Bran.

Eyes sparkling with resentment, Leah continued, “I always wondered why you didn’t say anything or ask more questions. I thought… I thought you loved magically interesting people and that this would make me more interesting to you. But you didn’t. You didn’t ask.” She closed her eyes. “All this time, I assumed it was just because it was me. Or that perhaps I wasn’t making that much of a difference as I thought, which was mortifying enough. But you thought,” Leah laughed, unhappily, true bitterness shining through her expressive face, “I was making it up. That I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

He rarely took the Lord’s name in vain but this situation, on many levels, truly deserved it. “Oh God, Leah, I am sorry. I apologize unreservedly.”

The success of a good marriage – or at least a functioning one – was that when either of them were in the wrong, they had to apologize meaningfully.

And the other had to forgive them.

Leah visibly clenched her teeth, muscles of her jaw working. He had hurt her and he had made her angry. “I forgive you,” she spat, angrily.

They both heard the lie. And Bran could be reasonable, in the circumstances. “I understand why you don’t.” For decades, she had handed him a gift on a platter and thought he had ignored it. Because of who she was. Who he wanted her to be. All the wrongs in their marriage that he would not right.

Again, there was a gritted-teeth silence as his mate tried to control herself. “Well,” she said bracingly, “it seems I might need more time for this one.”

‘This one’. A whisper of a thought, that he should drop to his knees and apologize properly, manifested in his consciousness. His wolf batted it away. The Marrok kneeled to no one. Not even her. 

“I should go,” Leah continued, swallowing, half turning to the door. “I don’t think there is much more I can sensibly say at this point.”

Without screaming at him, was her underlying sentiment. “That’s very fair. If this wasn’t my office, I would offer to leave myself,” he said, unable to stop the attempt at humor.

Leah gave him a look which could have shattered glass.

“Sorry,” Bran said hurriedly, looking down to the right.

She left.

*

Leah gave him the cold shoulder for two days and then, as was often her way, her temper simply disappeared. She unlocked the door between their rooms before she went on her run – the first sign that things were returning to normal – and bacon was cooking on low when he came back from getting the post.

Humming cheerfully, Bran put out plates, cutlery, and squeezed some oranges with the nifty little juicing machine. He heard her return from her run and bound upstairs to start the shower. Then as a change he started poaching some eggs and toasting a couple of slices of sourdough bread. A transparently ‘I’m sorry’ breakfast.

Leah arrived as he was plating up. “Oh, thank you,” she said, with a flicker of guilty consternation. “But it was my turn to do breakfast.”

Bran put the plates down and caught her face between his hands. The words themselves were important. “I’m sorry, Leah.”

The hurt was still there, muted perhaps, but the anger had gone. She nodded, her lake-blue eyes wide with earnestness. “I forgive you.”

Something within – his wolf, his heart – eased in the way it always did when she forgave him. They leaned forward together to kiss and whilst Bran would have enjoyed a more prolonged embrace, when she tucked her head into his neck and wrapped her arms around him in a hug instead, he returned it. And returned it further still, finding comfort in squeezing her tight, rubbing the side of his head against hers and breathing her in.

“Food’s getting cold,” he said quietly, after a while.

Leah squeezed him one more time and then pulled back to hop onto her stool. “Delicious,” she said cheerfully, picking up her fork.

For the rest of the day, life proceeded as it would normally. He returned to his office, feeling remarkably more cheerful, and made some calls, replied to some emails, approved a couple of contracts. Then at 5pm he received a meeting invitation for first thing the next morning. From Leah.

Bran didn’t think he had ever received a meeting invite from Leah before. It was entitled Good Change Discussion. He was not the only one invited as when he opened it he saw Charles’s name. Anna was listed as ‘Optional’. 

His son rang him within minutes. “I’m not going to join this meeting if it’s just going to be a blazing argument between the two of you. I’ve had enough of that in my life,” Charles began, sounding deeply annoyed.

Bran remembered the days when he had everything – and everyone – in control. “I see,” he said coolly. “Thankfully for your delicate sensibilities, my wife and I are on good terms.” Now.

This clearly took the wind out of his son’s sails. “Well, that’s good. Oh, Da – she’s sent through an agenda, now.”

Faintly amused that his wife was, right now, sending him ‘business’ emails from the room across the hall, Bran clicked back to his Inbox and sure enough Leah had followed up with an agenda in a Word document. In the background at Charles’s end, he could hear Anna laughing quietly, clearly trying to muffle the noise.

Leah’s agenda was short and to the point. 

  1. Laurentian Pack
  2. Results of first review of Change applicants
  3. Aspen Creek
  4. AOB



Charles made a small, wistful noise. “That first one will be interesting.”

Bran could do nothing but agree. He shook his head, clicked on the ‘x’ that would close the window. “Professional,” he surmised, wondering if he would be allowed a preview of the meeting at dinner tonight. Then his heart sunk as he remembered – Leah wasn’t in tonight. She was taking Kara out for dinner, their monthly one-on-one. He was home alone.

“What are you doing this evening?” he asked, shamelessly seeking company.

There was a pause. “Would you like to come for dinner, Da?”

“I’d be delighted.”

Despite lingering over store-bought apple pie at his son’s house, Bran was home before Leah. He did his best to delay sleep, pottering around, acknowledging he was waiting for his mate to come home because he wanted to have sex. There was no shame in that, per se, as Leah unlocking the door that morning had been the invitation to resume their relations. He was more antsy for her than he normally was, though, a consequence of two days of silence, and he gave in to his baser instincts just before 11pm and climbed into her bed naked so she would wake him when she returned.

He cuddled into her pillow, leaving one of the bedside lights on, fully expecting to doze and be awakened by her return. Instead, he woke up in the dark to her deep, somnolent breathing and the warmth of her body several inches away.

Without pausing for thought, he curled himself over and around her, feeling her jerk out of slumber. “Sorry,” he said, kissing her neck, her chin.

“Mmm, are you though?” Leah’s voice was thick with sleep. Her mouth parted for him as he kissed her, his attentions significantly more enthusiastic than her sleepy response. 

This required more effort on Bran’s behalf. He mouthed his way down her body, paying homage to her breasts, before laying worship to her abdomen, the tender flesh on the inside of her thighs, then finally settling his lips and tongue to where her hand was impatiently guiding him.

Once her responses were loud enough to confirm she was fully awake, he crawled back up her body to kiss her again. “Hello,” he said, stroking the rumpled hair back from her face.

Leah smiled and applied her teeth to his neck in a fashion that made his toes curl. “You were dead to the world when I got home.”

He rubbed himself against her, his whole body, skin to skin. “I have no idea why. I didn’t think I was so tired.”

“My wolf gets stressed when we fight. Perhaps yours does too.” Leah sighed in delight and wrapped her legs around his hips encouragingly, arching against him.

Perhaps she was right. He certainly knew sleep was always easy to find when her sated body was finally wrapped tightly around his, her fingers in his hair and his in hers. It felt like the times when they had fallen asleep together in their wolf’s pelts, top to tail, like she was his beginning and his end. 

*

On the table between her two couches, there was a tea set laid out – with the traditional blue and white Delft teapot, matching cups and a plate of cookies that had been baking whilst Bran had been making breakfast so he knew they were fresh. Bran and Charles were instructed to sit on opposing couches. Leah had moved the chair from her desk to sit between them.

His son’s brown eyes met his accusingly, with a hint of the dry humor that was so like his mother’s. “You never bake me cookies when we have meetings,” Charles murmured, taking his seat.

Bran naturally did not rise to this. “I’ll pour, shall I?”

Leah sat, a little nervously, Bran thought, with a thin stack of papers on her lap. She accepted her cup of tea with a serious ‘thank you’ and then cleared her throat. “Shall we begin?”

Both Charles and Bran nodded. 

“So, thank you for accepting my invitation,” she said, with a brisk smile. “Let’s start with my first pack as that appears to be of recent interest to you both.”

Bran took the chastisement, and a cookie, and sat back expectantly.

“Bran knows this already,” Leah began, looking at Charles, or rather the point of his forehead she usually addressed when she spoke to him, “but I was Changed when I was twenty-one. My mother took me to stay with an aunt in Montreal for the purpose of meeting people my own age, perhaps finding a husband. I was always a sickly child and all previous attempts to launch me into what society existed there always failed because I frequently fell ill. Anyway, one evening, I declined to attend a dinner party due to a headache and my mother, my aunt and her husband didn’t want to further let the hostess down, so left me home alone with the servants. A werewolf broke into the house and—” Pulling a face, Leah waved a hand. “Well, you know.”

Bran sipped his drink. As she’d said, he had heard this before, of course. Most werewolves had some form of ‘elevator pitch’ of their Change story – ranging in levels of violence. Few involved making the choice to become a werewolf, certainly few before the Twentieth Century. Leah’s, he had always thought, had never struck him as particularly bad for the time. 

“I’m sorry. That must have been frightening,” Charles murmured in sympathy.

Leah waved the hand again, dismissing this as well. “Not particularly. I was dying anyway. I knew it. My mother knew it. What I edit out of most retellings,” for this she gave Bran a small, anxious smile, “is that prior to this, I _had_ made a friend for the first time that season. A young woman called Anna Gray, who sought me out regularly. When I woke up, far from home and a werewolf, Anna was there. She reintroduced herself as Antoinette. Antoinette told me that she had been able to tell that I would make a Good Change and be a strong, stable wolf. That’s what she called it – a Good Change. She said she had sent her husband to Change me.”

Bran grunted as he began to see where this was going. “Yes, that you did edit out.”

“To be fair,” Leah said thoughtfully, that nervous smile a ghost on her lips now, “when I met you, I had no notion of how many did die during the Change. Every Change I had witnessed had been almost always successful. I just thought that was how it was. That the Alpha, or the Alpha’s mate could tell who would make a Good Change. And the handful I saw you personally Change before you introduced the ceremony in the 1920s were reasonably successful, too, so that only verified what I thought.”

Opposite him, Charles sat forward slightly, long legs adjusting around the table. His dark eyes were fixed on Leah intently. Anticipatorily. “When did you realize it wasn’t normal?”

Leah sipped her tea, a big gulp and a swallow. “It was just after the war. When we started to get more applicants. You used to interview some of them here. I met one, just for a few minutes, and thought he would make a Good Change.” She tapped her bottom lip. “I remember, that was exactly what I thought. Then, later, when I saw he wasn’t at the ceremony I asked Sam what had happened to him and he said the three of you had decided he wouldn’t be right. That you thought he was too gentle to survive the Change.” She glowered in remembrance. “I told him you were wrong. We had an argument.”

“Surprise,” Bran muttered, pouring himself some more tea. He had no doubt Leah would have been blunt and Sam would have been rude. Their personalities did not gel well.

Leah bared her teeth. “So then I decided I would prove him wrong. I wrote to Antoinette, who didn’t answer. I tried again. Then a telegram. Then I flew out there.”

Midway through topping Charles’s cup, Bran’s hand jolted. “You did? When?” Then it came to him; he knew the answer. Her photograph, propped up on his desk where no one but he could see it. The adoring dog at her feet. “Wait. George. The _huskies_.”

It wasn’t long after the war that George had started his dog breeding business, at Bran’s request. Leah had taken an interest, as she did with all pack enterprise, and had volunteered up a dog breeder she knew in Quebec. The trip had only taken a couple of days and George had proudly returned with a male and female pair and two puppies that the women had gone mad over. Bran had absolutely no recollection of Leah mentioning anything extraordinary about the trip, certainly nothing about meeting up with her previous Alpha’s wife.

He narrowed his eyes at his mate, who blandly helped herself to a cookie, nibbling it with her neat white teeth and avoiding his gaze.

Perhaps sensing that marital discord that so disturbed him, Charles cleared his throat. “I presume you saw her. And she confirmed what you had always thought.”

“Yes – but more particularly she said it was a skill that few had and that she wasn’t surprised I had it, too. She asked me to stay, to marry their Second. I refused again. We parted… in bad terms.”

Bran recalled the kiss at the funeral. “And so then you requested to be involved in the ceremony here. Repeatedly telling me that you would be good at it,” he sighed. Across from him, Charles winced, no doubt thinking – as Bran was – of the lives lost.

Leah nodded. “That’s right. I— Antoinette did ask me not to tell you that she had the ability, too. Which I thought was reasonable, though I did say if you asked me directly I would have to tell her. She had to understand that, of course. In retrospect, I suppose it made my argument to you seem spurious. I had no evidence, why would you believe me?”

Bran shook his head. “I should have taken more time to talk to you. I assumed, well. You know what I assumed.” He reached for another cookie, broke it in half and dunked a piece in his tea. “Antoinette was right. It’s a rare ability. I’ve never heard of it. Which was why it would never have occurred to me that you were saying you had it.”

This got him a firm nod. She understood and there was no longer any hurt in the line of her jaw. They were no longer in conflict regarding this misalignment. “So. There you have it. Agenda point one. Any questions before we move on?” she asked brightly.

“Not from me.” Bran raised his eyebrows at Charles, who shook his head.

“All right. I went through all the candidates, like you asked.” Leah handed them each a piece of paper, a simple grid with the names on the left hand side, then three columns titled ‘Good’, ‘Neutral’, ‘No’. “It’s definitely harder with just the first video diaries, you know. I’ve always found it easier when I look a person in the eye, in real life, which we do with the final candidates. But there you are. Of the hundred-and-two, I would say fifty-five would be Good Changes, another eleven are maybes, the rest wouldn’t work.”

Briefly pushing aside the thought of fifty plus wolves who would survive – two packs' worth of wolves - Bran lifted a hand to ask a question of his wife’s neatly arranged chart. “Why are some highlighted in red?”

“Ah. Um.” Leah rubbed her earlobe, eyes dipping down to her own sheet. “Because I think they might be psychopaths? So I really wouldn’t suggest it.”

His son huffed out a slight laugh, met Bran’s eyes. “Interesting that they’d all be Good Changes, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Bit of a misnomer, really. Maybe we should rebrand,” Bran considered, catching his son’s humor and returning it.

Charles tapped on the middle column. “What about maybes? Is that because you can’t tell or because you don’t know?”

“Good question,” Leah said, teacher to student. Bran watched Charles try hard not to react. “It’s a bit of both. I’d probably have a firmer idea if I met them but actually sometimes you really just can’t tell. They can go either way.”

Bran filed that away, already thinking about how they would restructure the applicant process. Wanting, eagerly, to start now. He sat back in his seat, trying to contain his excitement. “Anything else?” he asked his wife.

Leah’s mouth opened and then closed, a shadow falling across her face. She grimaced. “Just, on the maybes… Carter was a maybe,” she said, mouth pursing. “In case you were wondering.”

He hadn’t. Bran had – as he did with many sorrowful things – put that away. “Ah. I see.”

Red color rose up her face. “I… I hoped… but he was a maybe. And I thought because you’d— I wanted him to survive, I really did.”

There was a moment of silence, of consideration for this most recent of their human losses from the pack.

“Shall we move on to the third point on the agenda?” Charles suggested, breaking this mournful contemplation.

Now, Leah began to look really nervous. She rubbed her earlobe again. “Well. This is something I have… been thinking about since Carter. You may think it’s a little precipitous.” She smoothed a hand over the next sheet of paper and then quickly handed them each a copy. “This is a list of all the humans in our town. I applied the same process as I did the applicants to them.”

Feeling a prickling sense of anticipation creep up his spine, Bran glanced down at his copy. There were just over four hundred humans in Aspen Creek. A quick review told him Leah had clearly taken out anyone under the age of twenty-one, leaving around three-hundred-and-fifty. She had used a small typeface so that she could get all of them in two columns on the same page.

“Because I know them all… so much better, this is a more concrete response. You’ll see there are very few maybes. It’s mostly yes or no.” She stopped to allow them to read, chewing her bottom lip, her spine very straight. 

Bran took a moment to absorb this information. Most of the inhabitants were blood relatives of past and present pack members. Some didn’t surprise him. Heather, for instance, was a ‘yes’. So was Carter’s fiery granddaughter. Others caused him raised eyebrows. “Billy is a no?” Bran murmured. “How interesting.”

“Jesse too,” Charles said, in a similar tone of surprise. “But Tony is a yes?”

Bran’s eyes unfocussed as he drifted into thought. He imagined being able to tell the loved ones of his pack whether they would survive the Change or not. Remove that element of fear. And, in turn, have that confidence himself that he wouldn’t have their deaths on his hands. Or teeth. Or claws.

He looked at his wife, still nervously chewing her bottom lip, awaiting his verdict.

Carefully he folded the piece of paper with the names of the adults in their town. “Let’s… think on this for the time being. I believe the next agenda is any other business?” he inquired politely.

Leah, wide-eyed, nodded.

“Wonderful. Thank you for an extremely edifying meeting.” Bran turned to his son. “Charles, I would like you to begin the background checks on the applicants, as per usual. We’ll make the first cut the same way we always do as we don’t want any _psychopaths_. After that, we will interview everyone. Leah, you will cross-reference your initial impressions, see if you still feel the same way. Charles, you and I will check for fit. We will use Leah’s talent to prioritize but in the past we have been focusing on getting to a number of manageable Changes. We are not going to do that any more.” Bran smiled widely. “Quantity and quality, is the name of this new game.”

*

Bran tried not to let it get to him. There was a part of him that still remained suspicious and he had learnt that suspicion was a preferable emotion when dealing with matters of life or death. He had the call with Sarah, who was accompanied by her mate, for conversations with the Marrok were apparently not to be borne alone. At his request, Charles had not passed on many details about the topic which he knew would have discombobulated them both.

“I’m about to talk to Sarah. Do you want to come and say hello?” he asked Leah.

His wife leaned back in her chair, balancing perfectly in a way that Bran had been assured was unnatural. It looked perfectly normal to him. “Is this to reassure her or me?”

“Can it be both? And neither?”

“The suggestion being this is just you being nice?” she summarized wryly.

Bran matched her wry smile with one of his own. “Something like that.”

So Leah and Sarah exchanged casual chit-chat at the start of the video conference, which did in fact seem to set Sarah at ease. It certainly seemed to relax Mark, who’d had a seriously tense mien when the call had connected. Odd to think of Leah being a reassuring presence to anyone.

When the conversation came to a natural end, Leah stood. “I’ll speak to you later,” she said to Bran, not without heavy emphasis. To his surprise, she then leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. He imagined this was purely for Sarah’s benefit, one of those feminine things that said _This is my mate, see how we are_.

Bran let her have it because in some senses the visible stability of their relationship was important to those outside of his pack. He smiled, licked his lips, the slightest hint of peppermint lingering. “Close the door.”

To start with, Bran established a timeline with the couple – when they met, when they married. He added in the nugget about Antoinette and watched a broad smile spread across Sarah’s face. She laughed at her husband’s anguish and from the movement of her arm, Bran guessed she squeezed his thigh off camera. “He was very brave to face the dragon, all by himself.”

“She was something else,” Mark muttered, clearly lost in a distant memory, one that was not necessarily happy. Then, quickly, in case Bran might take offense, he added, “Respectfully meant. Sarah always spoke very highly of her.” 

“Were you at the funeral, too, Mark?”

Briefly, Mark shook his head. “No. I couldn’t get away from work.” With a small noise of amusement, he looked to his wife. “Though I think Sarah enjoyed it more without me.”

“I believe Leah did too,” Bran agreed wryly.

“You would have _both_ been very welcome.” This did not ring that true and Sarah winced apologetically, quickly changing the subject. “You didn’t know Antoinette, sir?”

“Bran is fine,” he said, offhand, like he always did. “No, we never met. From what your mother tells me, Mark, that suggests Antoinette very much didn’t approve of me.” 

Mark’s face was the picture of his father’s squirming discomfort when Nell had made a similar statement but Sarah affected a thoughtful pose. “Well, I’m not sure about that. You are the Marrok.” Again, the cheeky grin flashed before it faded slightly. “But, you know, Leah was always… special. Antoinette often spoke of her. She certainly seemed to have made an impression!”

“She does do that,” Bran murmured. “So, Sarah, you were Changed by Guillaume, too?”

Sarah nodded. “Yes. Around the turn of the century.” For some reason she looked to her husband in the way that couples who were together a great deal did – for validation, for confirmation, just for a smile, the latter of which Mark delivered. “The last century, I mean. I was in a horse riding accident. Broke my back. Antoinette approached me in the hospital and made an offer.”

“So you made the choice?”

She nodded. “I— I had been a very active person. Before the accident. The thought that I would never walk again… well, I would rather have died.”

“Did you know Antoinette before?”

Sarah shook her head, her dark curls bouncing. “No. I actually thought she was a nurse. I’d seen her on the ward a few times.”

Bran pretended to make a note on his notepad. Sarah’s Change had never been reported to him, of course, but it was long enough ago that the rules had been established but not enforced as they would later become. “And this practice continued until Guillaume’s death? My wife believes so – you are not telling me something new.”

Slowly, Sarah nodded, any humor ebbing from her eyes. “Yes, sir. Not— not many. Maybe five or six? We weren’t a big pack.”

“When did you leave?”

“Summer of ’35. I requested a transfer and Guillaume arranged it with Tobias.” Again, the couple exchanged a look. Possibly at the shared memory of how they met. Bran was grateful Leah did not have this streak of sentimentality.

As Bran had expected, a transfer such as that the one Sarah described might not have reached his ears. “I ask the next question without any repercussions. Did you know the Changes being made by the pack were unauthorized?”

She bit her lip. “No, sir. Not until long after I married Mark and we moved to Texas. Our Alpha sent you a request to Change one of the humans in the pack here. When I expressed surprise, Mark explained that was the standard process.”

Bran nodded. That the Laurentian pack had remained ignorant for so long did not sit well with Bran, who was aware they were not the only ‘remote’ pack in his remit. What else were his people being told by their willfully disobedient Alphas?

Sarah knew nothing about Antoinette’s skill and, Bran surmised after a few more questions, nothing about Leah’s. Once Bran realized that, he became more circumspect. He didn’t want word spreading that such a thing was possible. If it was true, werewolves like Antoinette were like gold-dust. Precious.

Werewolves like his mate.

*

“Do you know, I think you’ve come into my office more in the last few months than you have the entire time we have lived in this house. This version of this house,” Leah amended, acknowledging that the land had once held a smaller property. The property that had a small room, really no bigger than a cubby-hole, which Leah had referred to as her ‘sewing room’ because that had been the excuse she had used to hide away in it.

Bran dropped down onto the couch opposite her, stretching his legs out to the side and resting his hands on his stomach. “What else did Antoinette tell you? When you flew to see her under the pretense of sourcing breeding dogs for George?”

Leah wrinkled her nose, acknowledging the hit but apparently unapologetic. “Not much. She wasn’t best pleased with me.”

“Because you had refused her offer of staying in the pack and marrying Logan.”

“Yes. And I didn’t ask her permission to marry you. And, oh, a hundred other, smaller things. I think I’d disappointed her.” Leah closed her book and rested it on the table, next to a half-finished bowl of cereal. “She was devoted to Guillaume and to the pack. She could never see why others wanted to leave.”

Bran paused on her blithe mention of Antoinette’s devotion, familiar, in a sense, to Leah’s own to him. To their pack. “So she offered no theories about her gift?”

“Theories? No. But then,” Leah tilted her head to the side, “I did not ask.”

“I see.” No, his mate was not curious in that way. Even about herself. He felt the corner of his mouth lift. “You truly believed I wouldn’t care?”

Leah gave him a slow-blink and then an utterly cold smile, which was all the warning he got. “Bran, after a while I assumed it was just a continuation of your usual disinterest in me.”

He returned the smile because there was, quite simply, nothing he could say. Bran’s ability to detach himself from her had been well practiced by the Twentieth Century. In some senses, he now thought he had been willfully blind. Leah wasn’t supposed to be _interesting_. She wasn’t supposed to be anything other than his lifeboat. A strong, dependable wolf who would ask nothing of him. Who wouldn’t challenge him emotionally.

Bran knew, self-aware as he was, that he was in trouble now. The challenge was real. 

Though she was the one who had raised it, Leah eventually grew uncomfortable under his prolonged gaze, the silence that held no apology for his behavior. She played with the fringing of a cushion, looked down at her long fingers. “Charles says you want to reach out to Adam Hauptman. See if he wants to make his first Change.”

“Yes.”

“He’s quite young.”

He sat forward. “He should be capable.” As Bran stood, their conversation at an end because he had achieved what he had come for, a thought occurred to him. “Did anyone else in the Laurentian pack make Changes? Other than Guillaume?”

Leah shook her head and reached for her book again. “No. It was just him. He was the only one dominant enough.”

“Hmm.” When Charles had reviewed the Change data, Bran had assumed that when he and Leah agreed on an applicant, the fact that the number was higher was due to his experience, rather than their relationship. Was the fact that they were mated – as Guillaume and Antoinette had been - somehow a factor?

Something to ponder on. 

*

“Others like you _must_ have existed,” Anna said at dinner, looking between the three of her dinner companions. “Or still exist – and just don’t know, perhaps?”

Considering Leah was the topic, she was surprisingly silent, twirling her spaghetti around her fork with deliberate concentration. 

“I would presume so. Leah,” Bran invited his mate, pointedly, to engage with them, “is it something you are consciously aware of? How does the feeling manifest?”

“The first time I was really consciously aware of it was when I met one of the candidates here. That was when I knew for sure.” Leah pursed her lips, for all the world as if this trait of hers wasn’t a unique skill she had ever given much consideration to before. “If I had to describe it, I think it’s when I instinctively _like_ the humans more, if I know they can make a Good change. It’s definitely a warm feeling.”

This explained much, Bran thought – and saw the same thought cross both Charles’s and Anna’s minds too. They exchanged the briefest of glances, perhaps all thinking of the honestly surprising warmth Leah showed for some of their extended pack, warmth she didn’t necessarily show for their own people.

Anna tried again, using that tone many of the pack females used when speaking to Leah. Cautious but upbeat. “The list of the Aspen Creek humans only included adults. Can you tell in children too?”

“Yes. I just didn’t include them because it’s macabre,” Leah replied brusquely, helping herself to a piece of garlic bread and then, her fingers hesitating over a second, another piece.

“How young?” Charles asked, surprised. 

“Well,” Leah thought about this a little more, tearing the piece of baguette in half, “I suppose if I was ever given the chance to spend any time with them, probably quite young.”

Putting down his fork, Bran stood and walked to the now crowded mantlepiece. He picked up the photograph of Leah holding the baby. “This child?” he asked, presenting the framed photo to her.

She glanced, briefly, and then just as briefly her blue eyes met his. She popped a piece of bread in her mouth and chewed. “Yes. Bastian would make a Good change.”

Eagerly, Anna held out a hand, as if she could tell from the photograph herself. Her face softened as it always did when she looked at babies. Leah rolled her eyes and reached for her wine.

“Could we, I don’t know, ask people in some way? If they have ever heard anything like it?” Anna put to her mate and Bran.

Bran returned to his seat, picking up his fork. “Without revealing the reason for our question.” The reason being Leah, sitting at the other end of the table, in this week’s eye-wateringly expensive Sunday dinner dress.

Anna ate some of her meal. “Maybe we can speak to the ones we trust. Older ones. Asil?”

Not surprisingly, Leah snorted but did not need to elaborate more on her feelings regarding their resident horticulturalist.

“Yes, the Moor is a good idea.” He could be trusted, and even Leah would agree with that. Her issue with him – and Asil’s with her – was personal. Bran glanced at his wife. “I was also thinking of Honey Jorgenson.”

Leah paused in her steadfast decimation of the garlic bread. “Yes, Honey would be good.”

“Would you like to speak to her?” 

A taught smile. “No, you can,” she said graciously. Apparently, tonight Leah had decided to be comfortable with him speaking to unmated females, which was not always the case.

She wiped her fingers on her napkin and sighed. “I called Logan today.”

Bran decided it was his turn to play with his wine glass. “Oh?”

“He was… odd about it.” Leah stared down at her plate. “Perhaps just because it was an awkward conversation.”

Anna and Charles exchanged another glance. Anna didn’t know who Logan was. “He’s the Alpha of the Laurentian pack,” Charles told her.

Bran added, because it was relevant to him but perhaps him alone, “And Leah’s original intended.”

His mate scowled. “He wasn’t my _intended_.” Leah gave his son the barest of looks. Most of the time, she found Charles terrifying – except when she forgot, a tendency that he had noticed was increasing. “Antoinette wanted us to be together. I wasn’t interested in something permanent. My _wolf_ , more to the point, wasn’t interested. It wouldn’t have worked. I _told her_ but she was stubborn about it.” Leah stabbed at her noodles, pouting furiously. “She was so _stubborn_.”

Increasingly, Bran was beginning to think that at the heart of Leah’s difficulties with Antoinette had been their similar personalities.

Irritated that he was pleased Leah had not been interested in this man he had never considered properly, Bran finished his wine. “Do you think Logan knows more?”

“I think… maybe.” She shrugged and then exhaled. “It might be better if I have the conversation with him face to face.”

“You mean fly out there?” Anna clarified, her brown eyes bright with curiosity. She was looking between Bran and Leah the way she often did – as if they were a play, unfolding before her, and she didn’t know where the story was going. Bran had sympathy for her there – he didn’t know where the story was going either, but increasingly he knew where it would end.

*

“I could summon him here,” Bran told the curve of Leah’s spine that night.

Anticipatory beneath him, Leah ‘hmm’ed with disinterest. “If you’d prefer.”

Bran wasn’t sure what he would prefer. Leah going into Logan’s territory – again – or Logan coming into Bran’s. He kissed his way up her back, slowly, applying pressure to her hips so she couldn’t move. It was not very effective; his mate was writhing against the mattress, her arms reaching out above her and her fingers gripping the pillows of his bed.

When he reached her neck, he tilted his head and bit, just a little, and Leah made a small whimpering noise, shivering beneath him. He smiled and did it again, this time dragging his teeth downwards. “Oh Christ,” she moaned.

Covering her completely, Bran allowed himself the pleasurable friction of rubbing himself against her and she pushed back against him. “Come on, Bran,” she complained.

“Patience is a—” His words caught in his throat as she managed to catch his erection between her thighs, sliding him closer to home. He thrust his hips forward. “—mmm, virtue.”

“You’re a tease.” But she laughed and tilted her head to the side, turning so she could kiss him. It was an awkward, ridiculous angle – neither of them getting the contact that they wanted and after a while he gave in to need and coaxed her to her hands and knees. Bran sat back, running his hands down the arch of her lean back, admiring the view, before she wiggled impatiently at him. “Get to work!” she instructed.

He snorted, slapping a butt cheek. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Later, it became clear that Leah’s pre-occupation meant she hadn’t really taken in his earlier question. She stood at the base of his bed, brushing the tangles from her hair. “Wait – did you say you would order Logan to come here?”

He smirked. “I did.”

She put down her brush and climbed back into her side of the bed. “Why? To be more threatening?”

“Do you think he needs threatening?”

“No,” she said, slowly, thoughtfully. She turned on her side, snuggling into the pillow and looking at him. “Would you come with me? This time?”

“Yes.” There was no question of her going on her own. The topic was now a priority for him.

Bran closed his eyes, the wolf inside contented and restful.

“It didn’t seem important before – perhaps it’s not important now – but in the interest of polite disclosure, prior to you I had two sexual relationships. One _was_ with Logan.”

Bran almost sighed as a sensation of icy dissatisfaction spread through him. He opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, the restful peace dissipating.

He had always striven to never display any of the territorial instincts that other Alpha men did for their mates. Like his wolf, he knew Leah’s wolf would never allow her to be unfaithful – though he had often thought that the line was different in Leah’s mind than it was his own. Leah liked to flirt. She was not secretive about it as she saw no harm in it and never had any intention of taking it to a physical level. Bran pretended he held the same attitude – partly because he thought it would give her pleasure if it looked as if he was jealous and partly because he found the responses of the werewolves she flirted with to be interesting. From the extreme hostility of Asil to the patiently amused of Angus.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said equably. He meant it. Bran had yet to have the experience of knowingly coming face to face with an ex-lover of hers. Truthfully, he wasn’t certain how well he would take it without prior warning.

Leah nodded, a satisfied smile on her face – a job well done. She closed her eyes.

Bran – truly no longer relaxed – focused his efforts on tamping down the urge to ask more questions, revealing his uncharacteristic interest. Who was the other? When? Where? How long for? He felt certain if it was someone he was regularly in contact with, she would have done the same courtesy of telling him. And, he rationalized, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t _known_ there were others before him. There had been others before her for him. Countless others, if he was honest. More than her select _two_.

Annoyed, he turned on his side to glare at her in her peaceful repose. After a moment, she sensed this and her blue eyes opened slowly. “What?”

“Who was the other?” Bran asked shortly. “In the interest of polite disclosure.”

Consternation on her face, Leah answered immediately. “Isaac.”

His mind went straight to the new Alpha of the Olde Town Pack in Boston. He dismissed him immediately. That Isaac had been Changed long after he and Leah had been married. “Romano? The Alpha of the Italian pack?” It was an unexpected answer. “How did you meet him?”

“Yes. We met in Boston. He wasn’t the Alpha of the Italian pack then, of course. And our… relationship, such as it was, didn’t last for a terribly long time. A few years? On and off?” She hummed, thoughtfully, and he heard her rub her feet together, her usual prelude to sleep. She yawned. “It wasn’t serious, of course.”

Bran had met Isaac Romano two or three times before he met Leah. He was a typically attractive Italian man with a dry wit, had been a werewolf for almost twice as long as Leah. The entire time he had been Alpha of the sole Italian pack, he had managed to keep Chastel away from his territory – no mean feat.

Leah touched her hand to his chest lightly, as if she knew his wolf was bubbling inside. “You have a very peculiar look on your face.” 

“Do I? How strange.” Bran clasped her hand, linking their fingers together. He firmly closed his eyes, exerting more control over his wolf, trying to claw back that restful peace from before. Belatedly, her warm hand in his reminded him that he didn’t need to do that. He sat up to pull off his T-shirt, tossing it to the side of the bed again.

Leah eyed him suspiciously, opening her mouth to question him but he silenced her with his own, pressing her back into the pillows, kissing her and pushing thoughts of sharing her with ghosts of her past from his mind.

*

In person, Bran had to admit that it seemed Leah had very much a type and that type was not himself. Logan was tall, broad and muscular, with dark curling hair that touched his shoulders. His eyes were a bright pitch blue, not dissimilar to Leah’s own, but he had a natural tan, several shades darker than Leah’s pale Northern European tones, which Bran was able to compare quite comfortably when she embraced him and he kissed her cheek.

Knowing now that Logan had been her first lover, Bran clamped down hard on his wolf as he shook Logan’s hand, presenting his most affable smile.

“Marrok. Welcome to the Laurentian pack territory,” Logan said, bowing his head formally. This was then repeated in Québécois and Bran responded in kind, keeping a smile in place.

Looking around, Bran counted perhaps fifteen low-rise red and white houses dotted in and amongst young firs. Low-pitched roofs sprouted solar panels and there were trucks and ATVs a-plenty. In the garages, just as there were at home, he imagined there were snowmobiles stored, ready for the hard winters they had out here. He could hear the dogs, housed in one of the buildings further back from the road that ran through the middle of the town.

Leah and Logan headed naturally for the nearest, and largest, house and Bran followed. “We’re putting you up in Andy’s,” Logan was telling Leah, taking her bag to carry without discussion. “He’s at college so we’re using his house as a guest room. Or for when Noami and Amaruq have an argument.”

This last was delivered with some humor and his mate chuckled. Logan included Bran in this conversation by turning his head as he opened the door, a big, white toothed smile on his face. “But for now we figured you were hungry.”

As the door opened, a waft of appetizing smells assaulted them. Bran smiled some more, because it was expected. “We certainly are that. Thank you.”

It being a workday, lunch was intimate. Bran and Leah, Logan, Phina – who was his sister, and clearly a long-term friend of Leah’s – and the little boy, Bastian. Perhaps assuming Bran had been given the ins and outs of the pack, the relationship this little boy had to anyone in the pack was not immediately explained to him. From his high chair, he spent most of his meal being given titbits of food from the adults’ plates, inspecting them curiously, and then popping them into his mouth with varying degrees of pleasure. Bran watched Leah tug a little piece of chicken off a wing herself and present it to him with a smile.

“Chicken, Bastian. Can you say ‘chicken’?” she asked.

Bastian stuffed the chicken into his mouth wordlessly but his eyes crinkled, as if he found Leah particularly amusing.

“He’s so much bigger,” Leah sighed, almost sadly. She touched one of Bastian’s tight curls and then changed the subject.

After a so-pleasant lunch where Bran had to admit the dynamic between his mate and Logan was not noticeably different from with any other men, Phina escorted them to the house they were staying in. This was a neat and obviously recently cleaned one-bedroom property with a small porch and two plastic chairs.

“Remind me again which one was Andy,” Bran said, when Phina had left them to ‘freshen up’. Leah had duly done so, taking an extremely brief shower in tepid water, the door to the bathroom open. He lay on the bed, fingers clasped on his abdomen, and watched her.

“He’s Amaruq’s son, from a previous relationship. Human.” She dried off quickly and pulled out a change of clothes from her bag. She glanced at him as she pulled on her underwear. “What do you want to do? I could show you around? We could go and see the dogs.”

“I’d like that. Would Andy make a good change?” He was becoming used to asking this question. A novelty.

Leah nodded and her head popped through her dark green sweater. She pulled her ponytail out with a flick. “Yes. Are you ready to go?”

Bran jumped from the bed. “Indeed I am.”

The dogs were enjoyable – harmless, though they cowered if they met his eyes, knowing a dominant when they saw him – and he laughed at their antics, their wagging tails and lolling tongues. To him they looked small, though he knew he was more or less the same size. “I suppose this is where your love of the domestic dog came from,” he said, as Leah allowed herself to be viciously licked.

“Yes, though Guillaume would be furious about referring to these as _domestic_.” She crooned a little, rubbing heads and stroking flanks as the dogs milled about her. “He didn’t even like us petting them.” She took on a mock-male lower timbre. “They are dumb, working beasts, Leah, and would eat you in a pinch.”

Reflexively, he smiled. “Did you like him?”

“Oh, yes. He was a good man. I mean,” she cleared her throat, perhaps belatedly appreciating that this good man had willfully ignored one of Bran’s edicts and that was the reason for their visit, “He was good to me. Particularly when Antoinette and I were on the outs.”

“I didn’t know him.” The Bran that he had been would have deliberately ignored anyone Leah considered important to her. The Bran that he was now was disappointed. It felt like an imbalance. 

Leah was sympathetic. She buried her face in the fluffy mane of one dog, who crooned in happiness. Briefly, both she and the dog met his gaze. “You can’t know everyone, Bran.”

*

They returned to the main house, where many more cars were parked out front. Bran could feel the press of werewolves inside, that tender thread from himself to Logan and beyond. They took off their shoes, muddy from their hike, in the front porch and Leah led him down the hallway to the kitchen.

“There you are. Good walk?” Phina asked, emerging from the small pantry with a bag of potatoes. Like her brother, she had the striking blue eyes and she was also dark haired, though she lacked his curls - instead her hair was a short, sleek bob.

“Very good,” Bran answered for Leah. He took a seat at the kitchen table, the surface covered in the usual detritus from a busy household. Newspapers, mail, a few toys, several cell phones and a tablet. There was also a cardboard storage box.

Phina nodded to the box. “That’s for you.”

“Oh, you found them. I knew she would have kept them.” Leah lifted the lid to reveal rows of opened envelopes containing letters. She shook her head with resignation and refitted the lid.

Phina leaned back against the kitchen counter, folding her arms across her chest. “There was a hidden cubby hole behind her bed, would you believe it. I found all sorts in there including – genuinely – a wooden box full of doubloons. As well as your letters.”

“Doubloons?” Bran heard the word and thought ‘buried treasure’, as he expected every man and boy alive did.

“I’m afraid they’ve gone straight to the bank.” Phina’s mouth formed a tight but amused line. “Not without everyone walking around the place shouting like a pirate, though.”

“Avast me hearties!” came a voice from the other room.

“Cleave Him to the Brisket!” came another.

“Oh, damn, there they go, I could have seen that coming,” Phina muttered to herself as a chorus of ‘Arrggghhhhs!’ soon followed suit.

“What’s for dinner? May I help?” Leah asked, stifling her snickers and lifting the lid of the vast pot on the stove. She audibly inhaled with appreciation. “Oooh, lamb stew.”

“Yes. If you’re up for potato duty, you’re more than welcome. There are twelve of us for dinner.”

So unproblematic had the visit been thus far that Bran only realized then that Leah had accepted every single instruction she had been given by Logan or Phina without her usual bristling _I’m the Marrok’s mate_ attitude. Phina had admittedly been very polite but at home Leah would have challenged even that. Now she was putting on an apron and rinsing potatoes, with nary an aggrieved flutter.

It was puzzling and Bran was still puzzled as they ate in-and-amongst a warm and friendly pack. A meal so similar to ones they held in their own house except in their house, Leah sat at the end of the table from him, slightly imperious, ready to hit back at the slightest perceived fault. Here, she was all but slumped against his side, her hand repeatedly touching his thigh as she brought him into conversations with her.

She didn’t feel the need to impress these people. Maybe it was because he was with her, by her side. But then she was putting on no airs, no haughty nod to his so-lauded position. So maybe because she felt she didn’t need to. These people had shaped her, grown with her. They were family and talked as if days had separated them, not decades, in just the same way as Bran did when he saw old friends. Twenty or two-hundred years could have passed and it made no odds to him. He could pick up a friendship immediately, seamlessly. He had not considered that Leah would also have this facility.

“This stew is spectacular,” Bran told Phina in a gap in the conversation. It was polite but it was also true. He was already on his second helping.

Phina pressed her napkin to her mouth. “I can’t take credit. It’s Leah’s recipe. She sent it to me, years ago.”

Leah blinked down at her plate. “I did?” She took a mouthful, considered it. “Oh. I know. You marinate the lamb in white wine overnight. I remember.” She nodded, fiercely. “It quite fell off my rotation. Thank you for reminding me.”

They talked then of meals of the past – the big successes and the big failures. There was something with maple syrup that Phina tried that went horribly wrong, apparently, and the house had ‘stunk for days’. One of the younger men, an illegal Change, spoke of some banana pancakes that led to most of the pack groaning in remembrance. “That was my _favorite_ Le Creuset,” Phina muttered, not without dismay.

“My step-son,” Leah began, with a devilish look to Bran, “once made a fish stew—”

Bran reached for his wine, sympathetically wincing. “Oh no.”

“He misread the recipe that said _fry_ for four minutes—”

“And left it on the stove for four hours,” Bran finished, hurriedly.

His mate’s hand landed on his thigh again. “And we do mean _left it_. He went out, got distracted, and returned to the kitchen on fire.”

Poor Charles. Bran shook his head. “He was very young.”

“He was fifty years old,” Leah amended, to general laughter. Few of them would have realized that the man they spoke of was Charles Cornick, considered by most – including his step-mother – to be one of the most terrifying werewolves in the world. “And it was _my_ kitchen.”

“And thus we built a new house.” Bran lifted his wine glass. “Cheers!”

Though it was by no means close to the truth – the new house had been built some years after the fish stew incident – Leah and he shared a conspiratorial smile at a story well told. Under the table, she took his hand and he let her.

*

Leah carried the box back to the house with them, tucked under one arm. “What do you think?”

He replied with the first thing he had been thinking of, which was normally her approach, “I think we should come back when it’s snowed and you can take me out on a sled with the dogs.”

She smiled. “You’d love it. And I’m sure you’d be very welcome. They like you.”

The house was warm, designed as it was to be well insulated, and Bran opened the bedroom window, pulling down the mesh screen to stop the insects from joining them. Leah put the box on the end of the bed and began to unplait her hair, her usual pre-bed ritual before she washed her face, brushed her teeth.

“Why did you ask for the letters you wrote?”

“Have a look.”

Bran dropped down at the end of the bed and did so, feeling as if he was intruding even though she had instructed him. He picked one at random, recognizing his wife’s handwriting on the outside, though clearly written with a fountain pen and ink. When he pulled out the contents he saw immediately what she meant. There were two sets of handwriting. Two letters. “She replied and never sent them,” he surmised.

“Yes.”

“How did you know?”

“She told me, last time I was here. It was offhand – so it really only occurred to me later how it might be relevant to us.”

Bran flicked through the box. “There must be fifty – sixty letters here?” So many. The stationary changed from the more modern, manufactured paper and envelopes to something he recognized as being hand crafted. Leah had been writing nearly the entirety of their marriage. He’d had no idea. 

He supposed they hardly lived in each other’s pockets. No, he didn’t ‘suppose’ it. He knew it. Until the last few months, he’d had no idea how important these people were to her. She could be writing to a dozen others and he wouldn’t know it. 

Leah moved closer to him, tying off the ends of her hair in a fresh braid. She rested her forearms on his shoulders, drawing his attention. “You’ve got that look on your face again.”

“Do I?” Bran put his arms around her thighs and tugged her closer. He pressed his nose to the space between the hem of her sweater and the waistband of her jeans, nuzzled against the soft skin of her abdomen.

She touched his hair, lightly, then dug the tips of her fingers into his scalp, finding pressure points that made the hair on the back of his arms stand to attention. “Shall we fool around?”

*

Some hours later, he woke to Leah sitting up in bed, a pile of letters on her lap and one in her hand. He could smell the must of old paper, the hint of ink. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw her wipe away a tear. He rolled onto his back and inhaled deeply. “Hello.”

Leah palmed her eye and handed him a bundle of letters without looking at him. “I think these are the ones I wrote to her after we were married.”

He held them cautiously. “You don’t mind if I read them?”

She shrugged, tilting her head in such a way that her hair, falling out of her braid, fell down, effectively shielding her face. “I can’t imagine there’s anything in there that you can’t know already.” She sounded embarrassed.

Bran pushed himself to sitting, feeling a little dazed. There was no light behind the curtains. “What time is it?”

“Just after four.”

There was a two-hour time difference between here and Montana. Though they had wrapped up dinner reasonably early, he didn’t think they had finished with each other until after midnight. _He_ certainly felt in need for another couple of hours of sleep.

As if sensing where his thoughts were going, Leah absently patted his arm. “I’ll go back to sleep after I’ve finished. It’s not as if we have to do anything tomorrow.”

That was true. And he could understand her curiosity, her eagerness to see if Antoinette had any answers. 

The first letter he opened made him bark with laughter.

> _Dear Antoinette,_
> 
> _I have agreed a bargain with Bran Cornick, of Aspen Creek – which is somewhere in the north of the New Territory of the ~~Luisiana~~ Louisiana Purchase – I do not know the details precisely only that it is very far. _
> 
> _We will be married shortly and Clara has arranged for me a most Beautiful, Exquisit dress made up from her own wedding dress, though altered of course for she is even taller than I, quite the Giant! I include a sketch for your ~~enj~~ understanding. Of the dress, not Clara. _
> 
> _It was Clara, your obedient servant as ever, who entreated me to write for your permission to marry. But I do not care if you approve. I will have him and no other._
> 
> _Yours, respectfully, truly,_
> 
> _Leah_

He re-read it again and laughed again. Affection welled up within him, this insight into Leah’s frame of mind at the time proving delightful. Though she was pretending she was still reading her own letter, her mouth was pressed inwards as she attempted to hold back her smile. “Remember, I was very young,” was all she said.

The next few letters were similarly delightful. He sat up more properly, crossing his legs underneath him and propping his chin on his hand. One described the journey back. ‘Interminable’ and then a lengthy description of her first herd of bison. ‘Monstrous beasts – absolutely terrifying’. Once she reached her new home, she described each and every member of the Aspen Creek pack in detail. 

> _His hair is quite extraordinary, Antoinette. Fox-red and I can only assume he is exactly what the Vikings looked like, when they invaded Britain. And even taller than I! _

There was even a floor-plan of their first house, complete with annotations. _You would not believe the size of the spider I found in here_ , she wrote above the square that was their outhouse. _Particularly ugly chest here_ , she referenced on one corner. That would have been the chest made by Johannes, Bran thought, stroking a finger over the plan of the house he had spent one summer building with Sam, helped enthusiastically if inexpertly by a six-year-old Charles. Leah had made her distaste for this item of furniture clear on regular occasions. It was now in his bedroom and though she still hated it, she at least admitted as an ‘antique’ it now held value.

A few letters on, he read of her first fight with a wildling. She did not describe the battle itself – _came upon one of the monsters in the forest, unexpectedly, and one thing led to another –_ but she did provide a detailed list of wounds. _The bone in the thigh is the femur. My step-son told me this. It is not advisable that it should be visible. I told him I hoped to never see it again and though he does not like me much he still laughed so I was pleased._

He re-read this list of war wounds, frowning at the memory. She had nearly died and would have done had Tag not intervened. He’d felt her slip close to death – he’d been away from home and it had taken him three days to return, letting his harried wolf fuel his journey. She’d healed by then, of course, and he’d ordered Tag to teach her how to fight. Bran couldn’t recall being very sympathetic.

“Are you even reading her responses?” Leah piped up, distracting him from his thoughts.

“No. I’m enjoying yours too much.”

Leah ‘harrumphed’ and continued with her own pile.

Bran was twenty letters in – some were shorter than others, mere demands for responses – before he noticed she hadn’t mentioned him once since the first. Another ten letters followed and, still, he was utterly absent. Curiously, he unfolded one response from Antoinette and as anticipated he was not the only one who had noticed this dearth of information.

> _I have had detailed descriptions of a variety of colorful characters but not one word on your husband. Tall or short? Broad or thin? Fair or dark? For sure, I could pick your angry little step-son out of a crowd than I could the man you disobeyed me to marry. Is he hideous?_

Naturally, Leah’s next letter did not respond to this as she had not received it. Instead she wrote of babies being born – _a skillset I can at least assist the human women with, having been on hand for so many births at home, which was even more remote than here_ – and the wildfires in the summer – _quite, quite frightening, an avalanche of fire, the sky orange from dawn til dusk_. One letter was dedicated to a dress she had made from a gift of fabric for her birthday. Though she made no mention of it, the fabric had been from him. He even remembered the dress.

Many women of the time had kept journals and Bran supposed, as he read on, that this was Leah’s equivalent. She was writing into a void, unaware that her messages were being read. Perhaps she had thought Antoinette was destroying them. Maybe that she never even received them.

As time passed, Leah’s letters began to skip months before finally years. He read of the new house being built, of each of Sam’s lost children, of a series of altercations between Leah and various women in the town and some men in the pack. _It seems their respect is only skin-deep, a platitude in deference to my husband and nothing to do with me at all._ In the last letter in his bundle, dated January 1st 1903, Leah had written:

> _This will be my last letter for a while, I think, Antoinette. There is now too much to say and not enough paper in the world to write it on._

He sighed and set this somehow sad missive down. “I take it you’re reading the next set.”

“Yes.” Leah began to lay the remaining letters out in front of them on the comforter. “1922. Nothing particularly of note. 1930, I do actually mention the October ceremony in this and she doesn’t pick up on it in her response. 1942, I talk about how some idiots in our pack had taken themselves off to war.”

“Oh – did I get a mention in this one?”

Leah frowned, fingers perched, spider-like, over the letters. “Yes, of course.”

Bran pulled the sheet of paper from under her hand and skim read. “Nope,” he said, faintly triumphantly. “Not a mention of my daring escapades in France.”

She scoffed. “Well of course I _meant_ you. You were one of the idiots.” She continued with her listing, placing another envelope down, the letters stuffed inside at an angle. “1946. This is the one I sent to her first, asking questions about her ability. In her response she ignores absolutely everything I’ve asked and instead asks if everyone returned from Europe safely. Jean-Paul, here, did not, which I knew because Phina sent me a telegram. This one,” she dropped another letter, “is where I get more demanding and imply that there will be repercussions if she doesn’t respond and _she_ writes to say that being married to the Marrok had brought out my ‘insufferable streak’.”

Leah’s black look dared him to make any kind of comment to this. Naturally, Bran restrained himself. He had learned that any fights that took place in bed would end with his sleeping elsewhere and the couch in the living room was not long enough.

“This,” she sighed, holding out the next letter with downcast eyes, “is her first proper response.”

> _Dearest Leah_
> 
> _Your question is a good one – though in your usual style, rather belated. It has never particularly surprised me how little curiosity you spared for the world. When we met in one of those overcrowded little rooms in Montreal, you told me that you expected to die before you ever saw your next birthday and that ‘making plans’ were for other people. You only wanted to think about today. Even when we made you strong, that ethos continued. Everything was now, now, now. _
> 
> _It was why I thought Logan would make you a good match if you would have but allowed him in. He’s a planner, always has been. He would have given you structure when you could not. I had hoped your Marrok would teach you this. He seems to have failed in that regard. Perhaps he’s not the Great Man everyone says he is._
> 
> _Yes, I know who would make a Good Change. I feel it in my heart. I saw it in you – even with your small little wrists and big, sunken eyes. I knew you would seize your strength. You got it from your mother, of course. That woman was an Amazon. She searched for you for years after you were gone – convinced you were alive somewhere, as convinced as she was that you would die before your next birthday – and she would have carried on had I not sent Liam to end her heartbreak._
> 
> _Your Marrok forbids what I am and what we do here. I will not send this letter. It is better that you do not know._
> 
> _With love,_
> 
> _Antoinette._

Bran put the sheet down and they sat for a long while in silence. He felt strangely full, as if all the words on the page had taken root inside of him and swollen in size. In the corner of his eye, his wife’s arm was resting on the comforter. There were her wrists – strong wrists that twisted and turned and wielded weapons and touched him with love. She was wearing a T-shirt and underneath it, beneath her skin was a heart that beat steady and true, lungs that filled and depleted. 

It was an abhorrence to him now, that he might not have known her. That she might have been taken from him before he could know her. And it was he, Bran, the man who felt that. Not just his wolf.

Leah swallowed loudly. Her mind had been elsewhere, of course. “The worst thing is, she’s right. I didn’t even think of my mother afterwards. I was too— I was too busy glorying in my strength. She loved me and looked for me and I forgot her.” Her eyes filled with tears and they dropped down her face but she made no move towards him to seek comfort.

He looked down at the dozens of letters she had written to a woman who was patently more than her Alpha’s mate. “I am glad for it. You would have only been sad and there would have been nothing you could have done about it.”

Carefully, as if she really were delicate, Bran picked up her wrist, turned it over, pressed the palm of her hand to his lips. She watched him do this with swimming eyes. “Your mother would not have understood what happened to you but rest assured she would have been so happy you were alive and healthy. As any mother would.”

Leah nodded. She looked down with a watery smile. “I know it’s a ridiculous thing to be sad about now, so long after the fact.”

“I’m frequently sad about things from hundreds of years ago. It’s what makes us…” Bran paused, grimaced, “… well, human, for lack of a better word.”

She laughed and used the hem of her T-shirt to dry her face, pulling the top up to expose her stomach. As usual, Bran had the wolf’s desire to bury his face there, to rest where he was close to her softest parts, to glory in her trust.

He picked up the next letter in her pile, unfolded it briskly. “So, Antoinette believed it was genetic. Our ability to Change. I dismissed that theory, long ago. I wonder if we should be re-testing it. I seem to be wrong about quite a lot of things these days,” he said drily.

Leah sniffed and then wiped a knuckle under her eye. She gave herself a shake as he skim-read the contents of the letter. “This one is mostly a rant. I’d gone for a different tactic, telling her it would help me if she told me it was possible to predict who would Change, that your son was a big, unpleasant bully…”

Bran gave her a look.

She was unrepentant. “As I said, it was a different tactic. Anyway,” she leaned her head against his shoulder, as if she was suddenly tired, not as if it was a moment of need for his affection, “it’s not a helpful response.”

“I can see that. Though truthfully she mostly seems annoyed that Logan has married in this one than angry with you.” A detail that was personally quite important to Bran, who had wondered if Logan had been quietly pining for Leah all these years. He had always had a very fertile imagination.

“Yes. A human. She died a few years ago of old age, though she was in a rest home in Saguenay.”

Bran put two and two together. “Is Bastian related to him?”

Leah smiled fondly. “Yes. His grandson.”

Giving in to the temptation, Bran put his arm around her and leaned them back against the pillows. She snuggled in to him. “Next please.”

They read the next letter together, Bran holding it so they could both see.

> _For some reason, I always wondered if you would. Of all my girls, you were the one who leaned that way the most. You seemed to know Phina would come Good and poor Jean-Paul._
> 
> _I would have told you more about it if you had stayed, you stupid girl, instead you convinced Logan to take you to my silly Clara and that pompous husband of hers. And he did it, the idiot, thinking you needed to get something out of your system. Instead Clara filled your head with nonsense and next I hear about Italian men and finally the mysterious _Bran Cornick _—_

Leah lifted her index finger. “I’d like it noted there was _one_ Italian man, as previously discussed.”

He nosed the side of her head. “Noted.”

> _I hear more about Bran Cornick from the man himself than I do from you. We’ve had four letters from him – oh, respectful things, I’m sure, but dry as tinder —_

“Is she _criticizing_ my writing style?”

“You have to admit you’re better in person,” she teased, then yelped as he pinched her ticklish side.

> _Are you sure he’s not pompous and unpleasant? Is that why you don’t write of him? Does he bully you like his son?_

Baffled, Leah tilted her head to look at him. “What is she going on about?”

“Your guess is good as mine,” Bran said dryly.

> _You can still leave him if you want to. It’s perfectly possible. After a few years apart, the mating bond dries up and dissolves, a detail our men don’t like getting around but my mother was keen to impart upon me when I accepted Liam._

“Good Lord,” his mate muttered, taking the letter and turning it over herself in dismissal. “Did she think I lived under a rock?” He smiled at the back of her head and she lifted that finger again. “Don’t be smug. Don’t think I haven’t seriously considered it. The pixies nearly did me in.”

He would have found her. Wherever she went. He would track her down and force her to reconsider. “Thank you for not leaving me to my fate, pixies or otherwise.” Bran read on with building excitement. “ _Ah-hah_ , this is a good bit.”

> _I shall pre-empt a question you have not yet thought of or – I shall be kind – not yet thought to pose to me. Why can I, why can you, tell who would make a Good Change?_
> 
> _It’s a skill so desperately needed by our people, for without it more than half will die._
> 
> _I cannot but help wonder if it has something to do with our sex. We cannot bring a child to term but we can, in a way, give life, with our husband’s teeth and strength._
> 
> _Is it something in our biology? Were you born differently? Was I?_
> 
> _Are we a strange quirk of our evolution? A new strain of our kind? Bigger minds than I will have to answer that._

“She supposes it’s a female-only gift,” Leah summed up.

“And that it is only successful if it is between a mated pair.” He rested his head back on the headboard, looking up at the speckled ceiling. “Which suggests to me it is something to do with the mating bond.”

“Well, that part’s vague. Indeed, from what Charles has done, _statistically—_ ”

He interrupted, “The statistics show there is still a risk.” 

“And, so what, we rely on you to Change all werewolves in America? I think not,” his mate replied hotly. “I’ll not have you doing that to yourself.”

He raised his eyebrows at her dictatorial tone. “Shall we read the last letter?”

> _I have received your telegram, a decidedly unappealing piece of modern technology. So abrupt. I suppose you have a telephone too. I am grateful we are too remote for that sort of thing._
> 
> _I have been thinking of my last letter to you. The only other woman I knew with the gift, she is long gone now of course, believed it was a gift from the mating bond, a particular emblem of compatibility._
> 
> _I can see that in Liam and myself. Do you see it in yours?_
> 
> _I know you are coming. I want to see you. I do not know if I will be able to tell you so._

“After that, I never wrote to her again. Not until after Guillaume’s funeral. That letter isn’t here. Phina told me... she never really recovered from losing him.” Leah drew in a hitching breath and moved suddenly, turning on her side so she could wrap her arms around him and press her face against his chest. The rest of her words came out muffled, “It was what killed her, in the end.”

Bran rested his hand on her head, feeling his T-shirt grow damp. He could understand that, better than most, but he had not had a lifetime with Blue Jay. Not like Antoinette had with her Liam. Not like he had with Leah.

He pulled his wife close, held her tightly, and watched dawn glow through the window.

*

Leah slept through him showering, dressing and leaving the house. He found a piece of paper and wrote her a note, though he knew he would not be far and their bond would tell her that.

He found who he was looking for with the dogs. “I’m about to take them for a walk,” Logan said, genially enough. “Do you want to come with?”

He considered them, milling around excitedly. “Two feet or four?”

“I do two. On four they get a little… wild.” A big grin. “We save that for full moon.”

For the first thirty minutes, Bran practiced the fine art of lulling one of his people into a comfortable sense of conversational security. He figured he might as well use this trip to get to know an Alpha he’d had little contact with. He asked about the care and feeding of huskies. He asked after his family – now that they knew he had one. Bastian’s parents, Logan’s son and his wife, worked in Saguenay for most of the week, coming home on Thursday night. “Bit of a tough commute, otherwise. And I get to spend time with my grandson.”

Logan led him to a small body of water and they sat as the dogs ran in and out of the creek, playfully.

Finally, Bran broached his topic of conversation. “How many Changes did Guillaume make in the Twentieth Century, do you know?”

Logan’s smile was grim. “Illegally? Or legally?”

“Oh, did he apply for any?” Bran replied easily, as if he was open to having his mind changed.

“I was told that Felix was.”

Bran shook his head. “Not on our list.”

Logan’s dark eyebrows rose. He exhaled with disappointment. “I suppose I was lied to then.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“I expressed my disapproval… a few times. They saw it as their right, you know.”

“I know. Many did. And probably still do.” Bran watched a particularly energetic pup leap over his friend in the water, creating a big splash. His tail wagged frantically and his friend licked his face enthusiastically. “For years, my people have been creating monsters because they didn’t know any better.”

“Not here, I don’t think.”

“No. Not here.”

“I suppose that’s luck more than anything else?” Logan’s tone was questioning, as if he truly didn’t know.

Bran smiled. “I suppose. When you became Alpha, did Antoinette want you to continue?”

Logan picked up a stick from the debris around them. He drew it thoughtfully through the dirt, taking his time to form an answer. “She said if I wanted to, she could help. She didn’t put pressure on me, though.”

This bode well. 

“I know there was something different about her, if that’s where all this is going. I’m not ignorant of what goes on elsewhere, even if this is all I’ve ever known. I knew that between them, they could make more successful Changes than most. I know that sometimes Antoinette would just say no, if one of our humans made the request, and there was no changing her mind.” 

“Good man,” Bran said, pleased that he had put these pieces together. Willful ignorance served no one.

“She left me a letter.” Logan reached into an inner pocket of his light jacket and handed it to him.

Bran unfolded it, snorted at the familiar organization of names in a grid, then folded it again. “I see.”

“I’ve been carrying it around with me ever since, not knowing what to do with it. Do I believe this? Do I tell my son and daughter-in-law they could become werewolves if they wanted to? Do I tell the others? Or do I wait to see if it’s something they want?” He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “My wife would have known what to do.”

This was not a decision Bran could help him with, though he knew what he would do if he had human family left who would make successful Changes. “Whatever you decide, whenever you decide, come to me.”

Logan gave him another grim smile. “Yes, Marrok.”

*

“Da, I have a situation.”

“What is it?”

“Anna had a call from Claire Hardy. Tilly has taken a turn for the worse. Apparently she’s not responding well to chemo. She’s asking for permission for Harrison to Change her.”

“Absolutely n—” Bran stopped himself from the strong negative, the ‘not’ catching on his tongue. For the situation was different now.

Charles waited on the other end of the line. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, “I was thinking, she has an Instagram account, which she’s been using to generate awareness of AML in teenagers. Lots of videos. Perhaps Leah could… take a look?”

Matilda Hardy was nearly eighteen now, several years older than Kara had been when she was Changed but still under twenty-one. It had been some years since he had determined the legal minimum age for Change requests to be twenty-one. Old enough to drive, drink, marry and decide whether to live or die in most states, in most countries in the world. Bran pinched the bridge of his nose. “Charles—”

Charles sighed. “I know. This is a terrible idea. She’s too young. We have rules for this. I _know_.”

Bran had no doubt it had been Anna who had suggested it. His tender-hearted daughter-in-law, whom desperate mothers called about their tragic children.

“Let me think about it. Call me later.”

He didn’t approach Leah immediately. Instead, he mulled it over for the rest of the day, letting his brain worry out the pros and cons, the precedents that once set couldn’t be changed. Leah was out, anyway, returning home after dark with pizza boxes under one arm and the familiar branded shopping bags of their nearest department store under the other.

Bran accepted the pizza boxes. “I’d like it noted that if I brought home pizza when it was my turn to cook, I’d get a snarky response.”

“You would.” Unbothered, she brushed his cheek with hers as she passed. “But you’re above such things, aren’t you.”

He grumbled and after ascertaining she had indeed got his favorite, and remembered the extra mushrooms, put the pizzas in the oven whilst she ran upstairs with her shopping. Romano’s was a while away so the pizzas would need warming to be properly piping hot. He got out plates, glasses and a bottle of wine and tidied away the remains of his lunch with Juste and Asil.

Leah returned wearing sweat pants and a new, very tight T-shirt with a lacey trim that showed a lot of her toned stomach. She was also not wearing a bra. He mentally sighed as his IQ dipped in response.

“I’ll make a salad,” Leah announced, giving him a pert look, daring him to make a comment on this lackluster addition to her responsibility. 

Bran did not. Instead, Bran sat with his wine at their breakfast bar, watching her prepare vegetables, looking at her muscles shift underneath the thin material of her top. “We can sit here for dinner. Since it’s fast food,” he murmured, as she bent over to get sweetcorn from the freezer. He could see the outline of her areola clearly.

She poured frozen corn into a microwavable bowl. “Sure. Do you like my new top?”

Caught, Bran took a big gulp of his wine. “Mmm. Please don’t wear it in front of other people.”

She snickered, popped a carrot baton in her mouth and crunched. “I think you’re the only one with this particular predilection.”

He mouthed ‘predilection’ to himself as she finished the salad and placed the wooden bowl on the breakfast bar. She pulled the pizzas out of the oven and arranged them side by side on a big chopping board, whizzing over them with a pizza cutter.

Bran gave in and grabbed her. He stroked his knuckles across her stomach first. His _predilection_ as she put it. Her muscles flickered under his hand.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” his wife murmured, brushing the side of her face along his.

“I wonder why.” Bran found lingerie less provocative than this – a fact she appeared to be aware of. He touched a finger to a puckered nipple, painfully visible through the top, and then palmed her whole breast, curving his fingers around her.

Casually, Leah reached around him and picked up a slice of pizza. She bit off the pointed end, for all the world as if he wasn’t making moves on her. “Charles’s car just pulled up.”

“Oh for—” Bran was almost tempted not to let go. Just let Charles walk in whilst he was groping his step-mother. He did turn enjoyably puce when he had happened on them in the past.

She smacked a kiss against his forehead. Then licked it. “Whoops. Chili oil,” she murmured, wiping her thumb against his skin.

Bran released her, reluctantly. “Go put a bra on, for goodness sake.”

“I sincerely doubt—”

“Please,” Bran growled, catching her chin with his teeth.

Leah snorted and scampered off, pizza slice in hand.

Not unexpectedly, Charles had chosen to have the conversation with him regarding Harrison’s daughter face to face. “I’m sorry for earlier,” he began, looking at the food spread out. “And I’m sorry I’ve interrupted your dinner. You usually eat earlier. Shall I come back?”

His mate returned, no longer wearing the t-shirt apparently designed specifically to appeal to Bran but a loose blouse he associated with the 1960s and her hair down. She had swapped the casual sweat pants for leggings. She frowned at Charles as she hopped up on her stool. “What’s this about, Charles?”

Charles glanced at Bran for permission and Bran gave it by shrugging and reaching for a slice of pizza. “Tilly Harrison—”

Leah waved a hand. “Oh, I know all this. Claire called me earlier.”

If he was surprised, Charles didn’t show it. Fleetingly, Bran wondered if Claire had called Leah before or after she had called Anna. “What did you say?” his son asked.

“I said that I was very sorry but that we had rules in place for Changes for a reason. Tilly is too young. It’s too risky.” Leah glanced at Bran, briefly, for confirmation.

Pleased, in a way, that someone had the sense to firmly repeat the rules, Bran nonetheless acknowledged that it was likely Claire had called Anna _after_ Leah’s by-the-book repudiation _._ Charles’s mate was known to be more sympathetic.

“What did Anna say?” Bran wanted to know.

A flicker of irritation crossed Charles’s face. “She said the same thing Leah did but that she would discuss it with me.”

Leah poured herself a glass of wine. “Are you thinking about wavering, Bran?”

“I’m thinking about whether you would be able to tell if she would make a Good change.”

This thought had obviously occurred to Leah, too. “I’d have to speak to her.”

Charles started to pull his cell from his pocket. “Could you look at videos she’s done? On her illness?”

Leah grimaced but it was a sympathetic one. “If I must.” She wiped her fingers on a napkin and held out her hand, impatiently, whilst Charles found the video source.

With a blank expression, Leah ate her pizza and watched the videos, the sound of a forcefully upbeat young woman discussing debilitating chemo sessions an unusually somber backdrop to a meal. After a few minutes, Charles got a glass out and helped himself to some wine. He rubbed at his face.

Leah put the phone down. “Probably a yes,” she said, without inflection. “If you want a better answer, we could do one of those Facetime calls. Or fly out there.” She looked to Bran. “Harrison’s never Changed anyone. Do you think he could do it with his daughter?”

“No,” Bran and Charles said, as one.

“Then if you do waver, it will have to be one of you. Did Anna think about that when she said she’d talk to you? And give Claire hope that something could be done?” Leah lifted her eyebrows pointedly. “Or did she just think Bran would do it?”

Charles gave his step-mother a darkling look. “All Anna said was that she’d talk to me.”

Leah’s spine straightened another inch as she affected her haughtiest mien. “Then perhaps Anna should call Claire and say she’s talked to you and it’s still a ‘no’.”

“Anna would do that,” Charles responded, visibly keeping his temper in check. “She knows her responsibility to this family.”

“To our people,” Leah amended testily.

Bran put his hand on Leah’s leg as the tension in the room grew. For better or worse, she would defend him and his actions with her last breath but he didn’t want her to pick a fight with Charles over such a matter. Nor did he want to intervene when Charles inevitably reacted and Bran would be forced to remind him what happened when people disrespected his mate. “Did either of you learn whether Tilly even wants this?”

Both Leah and Charles shook their heads, antagonism fading.

“Then I will call Claire tomorrow. I will see what she has to say. If Tilly is aware, and willing, I will set up a video call. Leah, you will join me as an observer. I haven’t made a decision yet,” he pre-empted as both of them leaned forward to speak. “I will decide tomorrow.”

*

Claire was not the first plaintive mother Bran had ever spoken to, and she would not be the last, and he remained unmoved by her appeals. But even he would have been hard pressed to be equally unmoved by the call with Tilly. Fatally, he compared her to the hale and hearty Kara and from then on it was a mental slide through the daughters he had loved and lost in his past until his chest was tight with pain.

As he had instructed her, Leah sat mostly quietly next to him for the call. He supposed it looked as if Leah had taken Claire’s inquiry straight to the top, rather than Claire trying to circumnavigate through Anna, to Charles, and then to Bran himself. No doubt Leah, who could be quite specifically calculating in that way, had already thought of this. _Better to come to the Marrok’s mate if you want something doing_.

After the call, they sat in silence for a while, Leah looking out of the window, Bran at the blank screen of his laptop, at their darkened reflections.

“Well?” Bran asked, remembering that the purpose of the call had not been to feel sympathy but to understand if Tilly would survive a Change.

“Yes. A strong yes, actually. She’s a dear girl.”

His lips twitched. “You feel friendly towards her?”

“Very.”

Curious about her perspective, he asked, “And if I decided to Change her?”

Claire had said that the doctor’s prognosis had been very bad. He did not believe Tilly would survive and that further treatments would negatively impact her end of life. 

“I know you have your doubts about what I can do.”

Bran allowed himself a small grimace in acknowledgement. “If I were to be particularly cold-hearted,” he began, “in a way this would be an experiment. She would have been an unlikely candidate _before_ you. And if she survives…”

“I’m more concerned with if she dies,” Leah drawled. “It’s not a burden I would wish on you.”

Bran exhaled deeply. “She will die anyway.” And if she died by his hand… she would not be the first innocent to do so. That was his burden.

“Then your mind is made up.” Leah stood, the fingers of her hand drifting over his back. “Do you want to call her mother?”

“You can, if you’d like.” She would. Leah would get the credit for changing Bran’s mind. She would enjoy that.

But Leah’s fingers touched his face, her eyes sorrowed. “I thought perhaps you’d like. It might be the only moment of joy you’ll get from this.”

“Ah, it’s not so bad.” Spontaneously, Bran caught her fingers, kissed them. “But thank you for your care.”

*

The truth was, in his life Bran had bitten and Changed countless young people. Some more memorable than others - Charles's mother had been little older than Tilly when he had Changed her. That, too, had been an act of desperation.

But the youth of today were not the youth of Bran’s considerable past. Lives were longer – comparatively – and humans tried to preserve their children’s youth and innocence. There was talk about brain development lasting into the mid-twenties, about the decision making abilities of young people – all of which Bran had taken into consideration when he issued the edict that the minimum age would be twenty-one. Bran had no problem with preserving innocence.

They flew in to Denver and were met by Harrison himself. Father to father, Bran met the eyes of a man who was holding on by a thread. He remembered the feeling well, as if it was weeks and not centuries since he had said goodbye to his last daughter.

The drive to the Harrisons house was mostly spent in silence. As it had become a ‘family’ affair – Anna being a hopeful ‘post Change’ addition and Charles electing to join her – Anna occasionally piped up with a stream of light talk, easing Hamilton’s tension in the way an Omega knew best. She sat in the back, between Leah and Charles, both on their very best behavior with each other, trying hard to demonstrate the Cornick family unit. It was enough to almost make him smile.

“I have told her what’s going to happen. But I think it might be good if you can, as well. Now that you’re here,” Harrison asked quietly, as he turned into his drive.

They had spoken on the telephone since Bran had made his decision. Bran had informed him he had no intention of allowing Harrison to make the Change himself. The call had been brief, the werewolf Alpha unwilling to let Bran hear him cry.

“Certainly,” Bran said with a reassuring smile.

It wasn’t Bran’s job to be reassuring but to manage expectations. Claire Harrison was a strong woman – like Bran, Harrison did not have the Alpha tendency to seek out the kind of woman who required protecting – but in the face of their only child’s imminent death was something even a strong woman would falter at. Tears ran down her face as she paced before him, asking him for promises he could not give her.

From the mother, he moved to the daughter, a cup of coffee pressed into his hands by his tender-eyed daughter-in-law. Leah, furious in the background, was glaring at everyone and anyone who looked her way. It made him smile.

The conversation with Tilly was similarly bleak but within the young woman there was a fatalism that her mother did not have. She was serious, her grey eyes luminous with unshed tears in a face with skin stretched so thin it was as if he could see the bones of her skull.

“It’s not such a gift to be a werewolf,” he said to her gently, echoing words he had once said to his son. Tilly had assured him it was something she wanted – but over the phone, with her mother sitting by her side, perhaps it was something she had been coached into saying.

“I always wanted to be like my dad,” she whispered to him, curled up in her bed, layers of blankets and quilts covering her thin body. On the shelves of her bedroom, a bedroom caught in a time warp of a girl younger than herself, fact and fiction mixed together - fluffy wolves and Jack London, Peterson’s _Wolf Nation_ and National Geographic.

So Bran told her, gently, that the next day, he would bite her and she would die and, if they were lucky, she would wake up as a werewolf.

“Mom says there’s more of a chance of me becoming a werewolf than there is me surviving… this,” she said, gesturing to herself. She looked at Bran as she said this, didn’t hide away.

“She’s… perhaps correct.” The Harrisons still believed the statistics for the survival of the Change, the ones that only a few months ago Bran had thought incontrovertible. “But if you have doubts, Matilda, any doubts at all, then we will not go forward with this.”

In the hall, someone made a noise that was quickly muffled.

Tilly’s eyes did not waver. “I want this. I do.” Her lips spread into a smile. “And when I’m a werewolf, everyone will call me Matilda like you just did.”

*

It was a full house and the walls were thin. Bran liked to pretend he was a civilized creature, following all the human social mores when he could, but the moment Leah closed the door to their room he made a move on her. She exhaled her surprise into his mouth but didn’t protest, quite the opposite, she responded with enthusiasm, though she did pause at one point to shove a pillow behind the headboard. He wasn’t too far gone enough not to laugh at this.

“Charles and Anna are _right_ behind there,” she hissed, laughing and squeezing him close.

“Please don’t mention my offspring when I’m inside you,” he told her neck.

This made her bark out a surprised laugh and some of the dread within him eased. There was no more talk, no more laughter, until relaxed and sated, he watched with an indulgent smile as Leah dressed in pajamas she only brought out for ‘visiting’. They were ridiculous and he knew they would last about five minutes before she shed them, muttering about how hot she was.

Bran’s amusement was met with a stern look. “Don’t. What if there was a fire? This is a residential area,” she said very properly, pulling the pillow from behind the headboard and replacing it on her side. “There are _children_.”

Leah tucked herself into his side and Bran put his hand under her T-shirt, stroked her. “Absolutely. Very responsible. I’m sure in the event of a fire, the children would be horrified by your naked body.”

She pinched his side under the covers. “My naked body is glorious and you know it.”

“I do.” Bran laughed at her mulish expression that dared him to deny it. “I really do.”

Still laughing quietly, he kissed her, feeling her body shake with her own laughter but between one beat and the next the humor dropped away and it became the kind of kiss that entwined them together tightly once more, an eager, desperate clutch. They barely parted as he shoved her T-shirt up to kiss her breasts, as she pushed her shorts down. Through the pounding of his blood, Bran was distantly aware of the headboard repeatedly hitting the wall and not caring in the slightest.

“Oh for goodness sake,” she muttered, afterwards, her arm draped over her face.

Bran – and his wolf – were well pleased. He tucked his face into her neck, licked the taste of both of them from her skin, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

The good night’s sleep served him well. He felt loose and calm in the morning and because he was calm – such was the way of his magic – his people responded in kind. There was none of the frenetic, mournful energy of the previous day. Harrison kissed his daughter and went down to the furthest point of their yard with Anna, lest his wolf forget himself and try to attack Bran. Claire stood, enclosed within Leah’s arms, for the same reason.

Outside, Charles waited, keeping the rest of the pack at bay.

“Well, Matilda Harrison,” he began, kneeling beside her and taking her little hand with its delicate wrists, “are you ready to fight?”

“I am, Mr. Cornick,” she replied in her small, weak voice but with such a fire in her eyes that with a clarity he rarely had in such situations Bran knew then and there that Leah was right, that it would work.

*

On the flight home, Charles and Anna, energized and full of hope, were talking, firing questions at each other over the noise of the jet’s engine. Feeling surprisingly relaxed, Bran participated when he wanted to but otherwise enjoyed their excitement. He shared it too. But mostly what he felt was relief.

Leah, on the other hand, was writing a shopping list. His mate, who could predict a Good Change and without whom Bran would have told one of his Alphas to allow nature to take its course. He watched her neat handwriting as she jotted down meal plans and corresponding foods.

Spurred on by a surge of gratitude, he leaned over and put his hand behind her neck. She turned to him, a question on her face, and he kissed her, which abruptly silenced Charles and Anna who rarely witnessed any kind of public displays of affection between them.

Bran ignored them. He rested his forehead against hers. “Thank you,” he murmured, his voice barely louder than the noise of the plane.

“You’re welcome.” Her fingers brushed his face and then she drew back, her cheeks pink.

Charles was now looking studiously at his cell phone, whilst Anna was beaming at them both as if they had just performed an impressive trick. Bran looked out of the window at the passing clouds until the moment had past.

The moment did not pass. They’d taken separate cars to the airport and after saying goodbye to his son and Anna, Leah took his keys. “I think I’ll drive.”

He didn’t mind. Bran spent the short journey home alternating between gazing dreamily out of the window and then gazing at her. Though she gave him one questioning look, she didn’t ask after his thoughts, just turned the radio up and hummed along.

The house was not empty when they returned. He had left Asil in charge and the man himself had his nose in a book but was very obviously watching whilst Tag and Juste fought an on screen video game battle against an enemy none of them knew. Leah swanned past this scene with a raised eyebrow and he could hear her muttering in the kitchen at the mess that had apparently been left.

“Good?” Asil asked.

Bran, faintly transfixed by the moving images on the television, the almost-realism of on-screen violence and the way in which Tag and Juste appeared to be working together as a team. The last video game he had played had been Mario Cart, which honestly felt like yesterday.

“Bran?”

He jerked, shook his head as he recalled the direction of Asil’s question. “Yes. All good.”

“Wonderful news. Kara will be pleased.”

Of course. Kara and Tilly were of an age. He hadn’t considered that – this unique benefit of Changing a young woman – but apparently Asil had. It wouldn’t only be good for Kara to have a companion; it would be good for Tilly. Someone to talk to who could see things from her point of view. “Excuse me,” he said, because it looked as if Asil wanted to talk some more and for the moment Bran didn’t want to.

Instead, he sat in the kitchen and watched Leah tidy and cross-reference her shopping list with what was in their pantry. Like she had in the car, she gave him the vaguest of looks before mostly ignoring him, pottering about cleaning counters, putting things in the dishwasher. Then she made tea and gave him a cup. “You’re shell shocked,” she surmised.

“Apt,” Bran decided, after thinking about it. He looked into the cup she had given him. Green tea. “I cannot believe it, Leah.”

She leaned forward on the counter, adjacent to him, her cup of tea between her fingers. “That it worked? Or that I can do that?”

“I cannot believe that you have been right here under my nose all this time. I cannot believe,” he swallowed, “my good fortune.”

Leah’s cheeks pinked again. She stared into her own cup of tea. “I’m happy to be useful.”

“You are more than useful. You’re a weapon.”

She gave him a quick flash of teeth. “I like that.”

Of course she did. She was as bloodthirsty as they came. But as he thought in that direction, he felt the need to caution her. “As my mate, you are already an obvious target. As a werewolf who can predict the success rate of a Change you are, well, one in a million isn’t an exaggeration and there aren’t even a million of us.” He took a sip of his tea, thoughtfully, thinking of the body of the boy Mercedes had brought to them, not so long ago. “Not only would any other Alpha want to use you, but so would a variety of different human authorities. What would the US military do if they got their hands on you, for instance? You could go through their ranks, pointing out survivors, build them a loyal army to be deployed at their will.”

Leah nodded. She rose to stand, taking her cup with her. “I can see that. Obviously, I would rather die.”

“Therein lies the problem,” Bran drawled, as his wolf made his presence known. He rubbed the palm of his hand against his chest, soothing himself. “We will need to keep your abilities under wraps. I know you’ve not been singing them from the rooftops but we will need to be actively cautious.”

His mate, who had never shied from attention and would no doubt have enjoyed the feting that came with her ability, pulled a face. “All right.”

Bran smiled, touched a finger to her wrist and she turned her hand over, exposing the veins of her inner arm. “Obviously Charles knows. Anna. I will see about Samuel – if it’s relevant, I might disclose it to him when he’s next here. Perhaps there’s something different about your biology that he might look at,” he suggested. This got the expected equally revolted reaction from Leah, no doubt thinking about the close contact with his eldest son that might be required. “In our search for others like you, we shall use Antoinette as the basis for conversations. She’s safely dead and can’t be used.”

“I would like to be involved in looking for others.”

He agreed. “You should lead the search.” As their initial conversations with Asil, Honey and a few of their saner wildlings had borne no fruit, they would have to go further afield. She was the obvious choice to do this, though she would not be going anywhere without him, not for the time being, not until it no longer felt she had a target painted on her forehead.

Bran traced a vein on her wrist thoughtfully. “I’m sorry. That others cannot know what a gift you are.”

She put her cup down abruptly. “I don’t care about others, Bran.” Her look was piercing.

“Of course,” Bran murmured. She had only ever cared about him. About their pack. He would never make the mistake of thinking otherwise again. 

He slid from the stool and took her face in his hands. She half smiled, her eyes becoming slumberous with the expected intimacy that such a gesture usually prefaced.

“You are a gift, Leah.” And then, taking a step into their inevitable future, he kissed her gently, the barest brush of his mouth. “But you were already a gift to me. I am sorry I have never told you this. I have been blind about many things when it came to you.”

As he drew back, Leah’s face wobbled. For a moment she looked as she did in sleep – soft, her lips slightly parted, her entire body loose and relaxed as if she had not a care in the world – and then she flushed and didn’t seem to know where to look. Or, apparently, what to say.

After a moment, she took hold of his wrists and squeezed. “Well,” she said, meeting his eyes with rare shyness, her face still red with embarrassment. “There’s a thing.”

Bran manfully restrained himself from laughing at her, at them both, two people for whom the sharing of emotions had been ill controlled from the beginning. He was tempted to make light of it but imagined she would not take this well. Her heart was not a laughing matter.

He kissed her forehead and she tilted her head to the side, rubbed her cheek against his. “Oh,” Leah sighed, sadly. “This is the first time in a long while I wish I could write to her.”

“Antoinette?” Bran put his arms around her, drew her close. He could probably count on one hand how many times they had embraced like this outside of the bedroom. “What would you have told her?”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “That she was wrong. That I ended up where I was supposed to be.”

Bran squeezed her reflexively, fighting the dreadful fleeting thought of what would have happened if Antoinette had got her way. “Was that why you never wrote of me? Because you were wondering if she was right?”

He felt the curl of her lip against his neck. “She would have lorded it over me.”

With extraordinary restraint, Bran didn’t suggest his theory of their likeness. They were near quite a few sharp knives and Leah liked to stab things. “She loved you. She wanted what was best for you.” Good mothers did and Leah had been lucky enough to have had two.

“She did, didn’t she?” Leah said it wonderingly, as if she couldn’t conceive of it. She leaned back to look at him, blue eyes wide with chagrin. “But my goodness, Bran, she was a cantankerous old woman. You can see why, surely, I had such trouble with her.”

Bran eyed the distance between them and the knives. “Mmm.”

Leah narrowed her eyes. “What are you suggesting?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“I know that face. That’s the face you pull when you’re being annoying.”

“I have a face for that?”

She wriggled away from him, making a dismissive noise. “Oh, go away. Go do some emails or something. Find out if they’re all staying for dinner,” Leah suggested, nodding to the living room.

He felt a smile, predatory in nature, stretch his face. “Oh, no, they’re leaving, and you’re going to put that top that I like on and nothing else.”

Leah gave him a very flirtatious look as she left the kitchen with a very definite swing to her hips. “Am I, indeed?”

Bran hummed happily to himself and went to kick his pack out of his house.

\- end -


End file.
